Harry S Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by charles321
Summary: Harry has a very strong A type personality, but what if he was an S?  AU for want of a nail.  Book one.
1. The Vanishing Glass

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story. Feel free to thieve what I have rightfully stolen.

Chapter One

The Vanishing Glass

Nearly ten years have passed since your family woke to find you on the front steps, but Privet Drive has remained blissfully unchanged. The sun rises on the same tidy front gardens, and lights up the brass number four on the front door; it creeps into the living room, which has hardly changed for as long as you can remember. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece lack the comforting consistency that defies the passage of time. Once the mantelpiece had shown pictures of your cousin, Dudley Dursley, as a cute, if plump, baby. Now they show pictures of the two of you, though more of him, as is only proper, as you go through various landmarks on the road to adulthood.

You are asleep at the moment, but not for long. Your Aunt Petunia is awake, and it is her voice that will make the first noise of the day.

"Harry, get up! It's morning."

You wake with a start. You hadn't meant to sleep in late enough for her to wake you up, not on Dudley's birthday, but you had been having a rather good dream. You role over and try to remember it. There had been a flying motorbike in it, and you have the feeling that you have had this dream before. Shaking you head, you shrug it off. Motorbikes don't fly. You know this, you just wish that your dreams knew this.

Your aunt is back outside the door now. "Are you up yet?" she asks.

"Nearly" you reply.

"Well get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon."

You can't believe that you were so lazy as to make her get you up not once, but twice, and on Dudley's birthday too. You get out of bed and take the top pair of socks from your sock pile. After you pull one of your spider friends off of one of them, you put them on. You are used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs is full of them, and that is where you sleep.

You don't know what your family was thinking when they put you their, it is not really a very normal place to house a small child. None the less they did put you there, and now it seems like the past couple of years have been a constant struggle to stay. When you were seven, they seemed to realize that having a child sleep in the cupboard under the stairs was not exactly the most normal thing in the world, and had thus decided to move you into Dudley's second bedroom.

You had rallied Dudley, and together the two of you had managed to convince them that it was less normal to force a child to change bedrooms when you weren't even moving to a new house. You think that Dudley's temper tantrum might have been more effective then your appeal to normality but you are sure that he alone would have been overruled.

What really matters in the end is that you are still in your nice cozy cupboard. A cupboard that you have perfectly organized, and are free to keep exactly how you want it.

Now that you are dressed, you walk down the hall into the kitchen. The table is almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looks like he got the new computer he wants, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. You are not sure exactly why he wants a racing bike, as he is rather plump, and hates exercise; unless of course it involves punching someone. You feel rather bad for the younger kids that are Dudley's favorite punching bags. He used to like to punch you, but he couldn't often catch you because even though you don't look it, you are very fast. He stopped trying after his parents insisted that it wasn't normal for cousins to fight so much. They told him that as your gardians, it was the duty of their family to look after you since your parents are dead, and that means protecting you, not beating on you. You don't think that Dudley cares as much about duty as you or his parents, but he does know not to bite the hand that feeds him.

It may have something to do with living in a dark cupboard, or perhaps always making sure to eat less then the rest of your family, but you have always been small and skinny for your age. You used to look even more so before your family decided that making you ware Dudley's old clothes made them look poor; Dudley is about four times bigger then you are.

Perhaps you have gotten a bit ahead of yourself. Your name is Harry Potter. You have a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. You wear round glasses. All in all you look rather unremarkable, and the only thing that you don't like about your own appearance, other than your unruly hair, is a very thin scar on your forehead that is shaped like a bolt of lightning. You have had it as long as you can remember, and the first question that you remember asking your Aunt Petunia was how you got it.

"in the car crash when your parents died," she said. "And don't ask questions." Don't ask questions, that was the first rule that you had learned for getting along with your family.

Your Uncle Vernon enters the kitchen as you turn over the bacon.

"Comb your hair," he barks, by way of a morning greeting.

Once every week, Uncle Vernon tells you that you need a haircut. If it were that simple, you would joyously go to the barber to make him happy, but alas, your hair is not that easily dealt with. You must have more haircuts than the rest of the boys in your class put together, but it makes no difference, your hair simply grows that way – all over the place.

By the time Dubdley arrives in the kitchen with his mother, you are frying eggs. It is okay that he got to sleep in so late, because it is his birthday. It would be okay anyway, except on school days, because he is Dudley. It just isn't a good idea for you to sleep in, because you are Harry.

Dudley looks a lot like Uncle Vernon. Watery blue eyes squint out from his large pink face that rests on what little neck he has, and thick blond hair lays smoothly on his thick, plump head. Aunt Petunia often says that Dudley looks like a baby angel, but the only part of his appearance that you really envy is his hair. Uncle Vernon wouldn't criticize your hair if it always rested so smoothly on you head.

You put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which is rather difficult as there isn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, is counting his presents.

His face falls. "Thirty-six," he says, looking up at his mother on father. "That's two less than last year." You don't like that trend. Ever since you convinced your aunt and uncle that it was normal for them to get their nephew presents in proportion to how many they get their own son, they have gotten you 10% of the presents that they get him.

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," says Dudley as he goes red in the face.

You can see a huge Dudley tantrum coming, and begin wolfing down your bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turns the table over.

Aunt Petunia obviously can scent danger too, because she quickly says, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin. Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thinks for a moment. It looks like hard work, he never was very good at maths. Finally he says slowly, "So I'll have thirty … thirty ..."

"Thirty-nine, sweetums," says Aunt Petunia.

"Oh." Dudley sits down heavily and grabs the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckles, ever the businessman. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffles Dudley's hair. Somehow it is still neater than yours. Did you mention that you envy Dudley's hair?

The three of you watch while Dudley unwraps his presents. He unwraps the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, a VCR, a gold wristwatch, and a new TV for his room before the doorbell rings.

Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents take him, you, an da friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. This year you will be going to the zoo. When you were younger, you were left behind with one of the neighbors, Mrs. Figg. She is a mad old lady who lives two streets away. You hated it there; the whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made you look at photographs of all the cats that she'd ever owned. You had been very happy the first time that they had decided to take you with.

A moment later Dudley's best friend, Piers Plkiss, walks in with his mother. Piers is a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He is usually the one who holds people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hits them. The two of you never got along well. You always wished that Dudley would pick on people who were better able to defend themselves, it just seems like it would be better somehow. Before he and Dudley became friends, you used to tattle on Piers all the time, of coarse you had to stop once they were friends, if you had kept tattling on him, Dudley would have been liable to get in trouble, and cousins have to look out for each other. That is what family is for.

Half an hour later you are starting what promises to be an enjoyable day spent celebrating your cousin's birthday. You are sitting in the back seat with Dudley and Piers on the way to the zoo. While he drives, Uncle Vernon compleins to Aunt Petunia. He likes to complain about things: People at work, the council, and the bank are just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it is motorbikes.

"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he says as a motorbike overtakes you.

It is a very sunny Saturday and the zoo is crowded with families. Uncle Vernon bought the three of you large chocolate ice creams, at the entrance from a smiling lady. You are really enjoying the sugary treat as you watch a gorilla scratching its head in a way that rather reminds you of Dudley when he has to do maths, except that it has messy black hair like yours, instead of smooth blond hair like Dudley.

You have a wonderful morning watching the animals as they wonder what people are doing watching them. By lunch time Dudley and Piers are starting to get bored with the animals, so you head to the zoo restaurant. Dudley has a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory doesn't have enough ice cream in top, so Uncle Vernon gives it to you and buys him another one. You decide that hand-me-down dessert is much better then the hand-me-down clothes that you used to have to wear. Dudley always gets dessert, but your are only allowed to have any on special occasions like this.

After lunch, you go to the reptile house. It is cool and dark, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes are crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers want to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly finds the largest snake in the place. It could wrap its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crush it into a trash can, but at the moment it doesn't look in the mood. In fact, it is fast asleep.

Dudley stands with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils. "Make it move," he whines at his father. Uncle Vernon taps on the glass, but the snake doesn't budge. "Do it again," Dudley orders. Uncle Vernon raps the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozes on.

Dudley moans. "This is boring." He shuffles away.

You move in front of the tank and look intently at the snake. You don't blame the snake for boring Dudley; you wouldn't be surprised if it died of boredom itself, no company except annoying people drumming their fingers in the glass, trying to disturb it all day long.

The snake suddenly opens its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raises its head until its eyes are on a level with yours.

It winks.

You stare. A snake just winked at you, that can't be a good thing. You are rather sure that snakes don't wink at normal people, and you know that nothing can be more important then being normal. You quickly look around to see if anyone is watching. They aren't.

The snake jerks its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raises its eyes to the ceiling. It is giving you a look that says quite plainly: "I get that all the time."

You decide that while it is clearly not normal for a snake to act like this, the normal response it to be polite. "I know," you murmur through the glass, though really, the snake probably can't hear you. "It must be really annoying."

You can't believe it, the snake nods, vigorously.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" You ask.

The snake jabs its tail at a little sign next to the glass. You peer at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil. In your opinion, it should also say, 'World's smartest snake', but then again, you don't know much about snakes, maybe there is an even smarter one somewhere.

You decide to go back to making pleasant conversation with the giant man-eating reptile. "Was it nice there?" The boa constrictor jabs its tail at the sign again and you read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see. So you've never been to Brazil." As the snake shakes its head, a deafening shout behind you makes both of you jump.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING" Dudley comes waddling towards you as fast as he can. So focused is he, that he bubs into you and knocks you down without even realizing it. Caught by surprise, you fall hard on the concrete floor.

What comes next happens so fast that nobody sees how it happens. One moment, Piers and Dudley are leaning right up close to the glass, the next they leap back with howls of horror.

You sit up and gasp; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank has vanished. The great snake is uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house scream and start running for the exits.

As the snake slides swiftly past you, you could swear a low, hissing voice says, "Brazil, here I come.. Thanksss, amigo." The keeper of the reptile house is clearly in shock.

"But the glass," he keeps saying, "where did the glass go?"

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again latter that afternoon. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as you had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time you got back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling you how it had nearly bitten his leg off, while Piers was swearing up and down that it had tried to squeeze his to death. Worst of all, for you at least, was when Piers calmed down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry." Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safetly out of the house before starting in on you. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go, cupboard, stay, no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

You lie in your dark cupboard much later, withing you had a watch. You don't know what time it is, and you can't be sure the Dursleys are asleep yet. Until they are, you can't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

You've lived with the Dursleys for almost ten years, as long as you can remember, ever since you were a baby and your parents had died in that car crash. You can't remember being in the car when they died. Sometimes, when you strain your memory , you come up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on your forehead. This, you suppose, was the crash, though you can't imagine where all the green light came from. You can't remember your parents at all. Your aunt and uncle never speak of them, and you are forbidden to ask questions. There are no pictures of them in the house.

When you were younger, before your family started being nicer to you, you used to dream and dream of some unknown relation coming to take you away, but it never happened; the Dursleys are your only family. Things have improved in the last several years; in fact, this is the first time they have locked you in your cupboard since you were a little kid. You learned long ago that they just wanted you to be normal, and since you want to be normal, that is easy most of the time. You generally think that you are far more normal then Dudley, not that you would ever anger them by voicing that opinoin. Still, you can't blame them for punishing you this time, there is nothing normal about talking to a snake, and even though you couldn't possibly have made the glass vanish, the circumstantial evidence does point to you. After all, you were talking to it, and then you were annoyed when Dudley carelessly knocked you out of the way.

Despite your efforts to be normal, you sometimes think, or maybe fear, that strangers in the street seem to know you. Very strange strangers they are too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to you once while out shopping with your aunt and cousin. After asking you furiously if you knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed you out of the shop without buying anything. You were glad that she did; he was weird. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at you once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken your hand in the street the other day, and then walked away without a word. The freakiest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second you try to get a closer look.

AN: Most of this chapter comes straight from cannon. This is because Harry having a different personality type hasn't changed much yet. Obviously the Dursleys get along with him better, but I don't think that would really change Dudley's birthday much, as they took Harry along in cannon anyway due to Mrs. Figg's mishap. I have tried to insert a bit of my writing style so that it will fit in stylistically latter, but as I copied a lot of it word for word, there is a lot of Rowling's style too.


	2. The Letters From No One

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story. Feel free to abscond with what I have rightfully pilfered.

AN: I actually finished this one early, but decided to post on the one week mark in an effort to maintain regularity of posting. Chapter three should be out a week from today.

Chapter Two

The Letters From No One

By the time that you are no longer grounded for the escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor, the summer holidays have started, and Dudley has already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

You are glad that school is over, but you still have to put up with the people that Dudley chooses to associate himself with. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon are all big and stupid, but as Dudley is the leader, they at least leave you alone.

To encourage this trend, you spend as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, that are causing you an unfortunate amount of apprehension. When September comes, you will be going off to secondary school, and, for the first time in your life, you won't have Dudley to protect you. Dudley has been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers is going there too. You, on the other hand, are going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thinks this is funny, but he can be a jerk like that sometimes. You wish that your family would pay to send you there too, but you know that it is expensive enough for them to send their own son, and that they would have a hard time paying for twice the tuition. You will have to be content with the public school.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia takes Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving you with Mrs. Figg. You don't really like spending time with Mrs. Figg; she spends her time showing you pictures of every cat she's ever owned, and her house smells of cabbage. She is not that bad this time. Turns out that the reason she was on crutches when Dudley hit her on his racing bike was that she broke her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she doesn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She lets you watch TV and gives you a bit of chocolate cake. The cake tastes as though she's had it for several years, but it is still chocolate.

That evening, Dudley parades around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wear maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carry knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers aren't looking. This is supposed to be good training for later life.

Maybe it is a good thing that you are going to Stonewall. Not that you are worried about being hit, Dudley would protect you, and you know that he is big and tough. That is also good training for latter life, get someone bigger and tougher then you to stick up for you. It's best if you help them with their homework. No, the reason that you are glad you are not going, is because that uniform looks freakish. If there is one thing you never want to be, it is a freak.

Your Aunt and Uncle don't seem to agree. As he looks at Dudley in his new _orange_ knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon says gruffly that it is the proudest moment of his life. Aunt bursts into tears. You think for moment that this might be because she has finally realized what going to Smeltings entails, but no, she says she can't believe her Ickle Dudleykins looks so handsome and grown-up. You don't trust yourself to say anything, but the tears running down your face are from suppressed laughter, not pride in your cousin's appearance.

There is a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when you go in for breakfast. You think that this must be the result of having a lie-in and letting Aunt Petunia start breakfast without you. Alas, she is the one who taught you to cook, so the smell comes from a large metal tub in the sink. You go to have a look, and the tub is full of what looks like dirty rags swimming in gray water.

You stare at it questioningly, knowing better then to ask your aunt a question. She doesn't like those.

"This is your new school uniform," she says.

You look in the bowl again.

"I'm dyeing a second hand school uniform that I picked up yesterday gray for you. The white was half the price of the gray, and it's white, so it'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished." You find this hard to believe, but if anyone knows how to make something seem normal, it's Aunt Petunia. Perhaps everyone who actually goes to public school has to get a second hand uniform and then dyes them because white is cheaper.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon come in then, both wrinkling their noses because of the smell form your new uniform. Uncle Vernon opens his newspaper as usual and Dudley bangs his Smelting stick, which he carries with him everywhere, on the table.

You hear the click of the mail slot and the flop of letters in the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," says Uncle Vernon form behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"I'm on it." You go to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge, who is vacationing on the Isle of Wright, a brown envelope that looks like a bill, and a letter for you.

You pick it up and stare at it. You can't remember the last time someone wrote to you. Who would? You have no friends due to your tendency to tattle, no relatives that aren't more closely related to the rest of your family, and you don't pay bills or even belong to the library, so you never even get rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it is, a letter, addressed so plainly there can be no mistake: Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging, Surrey

The envelope is thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address is written in emerald-green ink. There is no stamp.

You turn the envelope over, your hand trembling, and see a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, and eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

"Hurry up!" Uncle Vernon shouts from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckles at his own joke.

You jump up, and hurry back to the kitchen, still staring at your letter. You hand Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sit down, and slowly begin to peal the wax seal from the envelope.

Uncle Vernon rips open the bill, snorts in disgust, and flips over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informs Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk."

You are on the point of unfolding your letter, which is written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope. You start reading:

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witch...

It is at this point that Uncle Vernon interrupts your reading.

"What do you have there?"

You look up. "I got a letter from some school excepting me."

Aunt Petunia's face pales, and she turns to you. "What school? Vernon, let me see that letter!"

Uncle Vernon grabs the letter, and you let him take it, you haven't seen your aunt look so scared before. He looks at the letter curiously before handing it over, and his face turns green. Aunt Petunia reads the first line over his shoulder, and she makes a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness. Vernon!" They stare at each other, seeming to have forgotten that you and Dudley are still in the room Dudley tries to grab the letter, but Uncle Vernon holds it up over his head.

Dudley gives his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick. "I want to read that letter," he says loudly.

You look at them all incredulously. "I want to read it, as it's mine."

Uncle Vernon croaks, "Get out, both of you" as he stuffs the letter back inside its envelope.

For once, you don't move quickly to obey. "I want my letter," you say in a calm voice.

"Let me see it!" demands Dudley.

"OUT!" roars Uncle Vernon, and he takes both you and Dudley by the scruffs of your necks, and throws you both into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind you. Dudley moves to listen at the keyhole, so you lay flat on your stomach to listen at the crack between the door and the floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia says in a quivering voice, "look at the address; how could they possible know where he sleeps. You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching, spying, might be following us," mutters Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want..." You can see your uncle's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he finally says. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything"

"But..."

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense. He was acting so normal, I thought we had succeeded."

"I thought so too. My sister was never that normal."

That evening, when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon visited you in your cupboard. You can tell that neither of you is really comfortable with him here.

"Might I have my letter?" you ask the moment he has squeezed through the door.

"I have burned it." Is his short reply. "It would be best if you put it out of your mind, it was just a cruel trick."

"What about that school. Did I get a scholarship?"

He sighs. "Enough questions. Your aunt didn't raise you to ask questions. The school isn't real, it is just a cruel lie, devised by some people who don't like me. Your aunt and I think that they were pointing out to us that they know you live in a cupboard. Wouldn't be good if they spread it around. I know that you like it in here, but it really isn't normal to live in a cupboard. We think it is time for you to move into Dudley's second bedroom."

That is so unfair. "Can't we just make them think that I moved?"

"No more questions," he snaps. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

It only takes you three trips to move all your stuff from your cupboard to the bedroom where Dudley kept all the toys and things that don't fit into his bedroom. You sit down on your bed and look around at your new home. Nearly everything is broken, and everything is an appalling mess. You have been there less than five minutes, and you already miss your nice orderly cupboard. The month-old video camera is lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley once drove over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner is Dudley's first-ever TV, which he put his foot through when hes favorite program was cancelled; there is a large birdcage, which once held a parrot that Dudley swapped at school for a real air rifle, which is up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley sat on it. Other shelves show a semblance of order, as they overflow with books that look as though they've never been touched. The whole room is cluttered and uncomfortably open. How are you supposed to sleep with all this clutter and open space?

From downstairs comes the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother. "I don't want him in there. I need that room. Let him move back into his cupboard!" You sigh and stretch out on the bed. Sometimes life sucks for everyone. You decide that you really don't like whoever sent that letter; they disrupted your nice, neat life.

Everyone is rather quiet the next morning at breakfast. Dudley is still in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, whacked you with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still doesn't have his room back. Come to think of it, you can't remember him ever not getting something he wanted that badly before. You are thinking about this time yesterday, and wishing that you had opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia keep looking at each other darkly. You suppose that comes from being blackmailed.

When the mail arrives, Uncle Vernon makes Dudley go get it. You hear him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then you hear him shout, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive." With a strange cry, Uncle Vernon leaps from his seat and runs down the hall, you run right behind him. He has to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him. After a minute of confused fighting, Uncle Vernon straightens up, grasping for breath, with your letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard, I mean, your room," he wheezes at you. "Dudley, go, just go."

You walk round and round your new room. Someone knows you have moved out of your cupboard, and either they know that you haven't received your first letter, or they have some new blackmail for your uncle. That means that they will likely try again, and this time you'll make sure that you get to at least read that letter. You generally trust your family, but something seems off about this whole thing. Who accepts someone to a school that obviously doesn't exist as part of a blackmail plot? Tomorrow you will have a plan.

You wake up before everyone else, like normal, the next morning, and dress silently. You know that you can't wake your family. Then you steel downstairs without turning on any of the lights, probably a good thing to get used to anyway if you are going to be sleeping upstairs now.

You are going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Your heart hammers as you creep across the dark hall toward the front door – you leap into the air; you've steped on something big and squashy on the doormat, something alive. Lights click on upstairs, and to your horror, you realize that the big squashy something is your uncle's face. Uncle Vernon was lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that you don't do exactly what you had been planning to do. Well, that sucks.

He shouts at you for about half an hour, and then tells you to go make a cup of tea. You shuffle miserable off into the kitchen, and by the time you get back, the mail has arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. You can see three letters addressed in green ink.

You watch as Uncle Vernon tears the letters into pieces before your eyes. He doesn't go to work, instead he stays home and nails up the mail slot.

"See," he explains to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," he says as he tries to knock in a nail with a piece of fruitcake that aunt Petunia had just brought him.

It seems to you that Uncle Vernon is expecting them to think like him, but far be it from you to question his wisdom.

Times proves you right, as on Friday, no less then twelve letters arrive for you. As they couldn't go through the mail slot, they were pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom. How this was accomplished, you have no clue.

Your uncle stays home again. After burning all the letters, he gets out a hammer and nails and boards up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one can go out. This seems rather short sighted to you, as he will surely need to go out come Monday, but your uncle is a smart man, perhaps he has already thought of something. He certainly outsmarted you yesterday.

On Saturday, things begin to really get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to you find their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that a very confused milk man handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon makes furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shreds the letters in her food processor. You can't help but think that if someone is trying to destroy the reputation of your family, they seem to be winning. It seems like it would be smarter to simply ignore the letters at this point.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asks you in amazement. You can only shrug in reply. As unlikely as the blackmail story seems, the school story that they announced in the first line seems even more unlikely.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sits down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. He's probably excited that there is no post on Sundays, but it seems to you that he will be lucky to get through another week of these letters without doing something really crazy, possibly what whoever is sending the letters wants.

"No post on Sundays," he reminds everyone cheerfully as he spreads marmalade on his newspapers. You are starting to think that he might actually need help. Newspapers are very different from the toast that you made for him. "No cursed letters today." Something comes whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he speaks and catches him sharply on the back of the head. The next moment, thirty or forty letters come pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys duck, but you show rare bravery, and leap out of your chair into the air to catch one. It is beyond curiosity at this point. You bet that if you read the letters in their entirety, Uncle Vernon would stop freaking out about whatever horrible secret they contain. Then maybe he could deal with them in a healthier, and more reasonable manner.

"Out! Out!" Uncle Vernon seizes you around the waist and throws you into the hall.

When Aunt Petunia and Dudley have run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slams the door shut. You can still hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," says Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly, but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" He looks so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dares to argue. Ten minutes later you have wrenched your way through the boarded-up doors, and are in the car, speeding toward the highway.

Dudley is sniffing in the back seat; his father hit him round the head for holding you up while he tried to pack his TV, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.

You drive. And drive. Even Aunt Petunia doesn't dare ask where you are going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon takes a sharp turn and drives in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he mutters whenever he does this.

You don't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley is howling. He's never had such a bad day in his life. He is hungry, he's missed five TV programs he wanted to see, and he's never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon finally stops outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. You'd be more vague, but you're not really sure how. You and Dudley share a room with damp, musty shets. Dudley snores, but you stay awake, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar room. Instead you stay awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...

You do end up getting to bed, for a few hours, early in the morning, but still beat the rest of your family up. You find that the task of preparing breakfast has been taken from you, along with your cupboard and all trace of familiarity. Did you mention that you don't like whoever sent the letters very much?

You wait for everyone else to wake up, and then you all eat stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast. Even Uncle Vernon remarks that he misses your cooking. He quickly comes to regret giving you one of his rare complements when the owner of the hotel comes over to your table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undered of these at the front desk." She holds up a letter so that you can read the green ink address:

Mr. H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

You make a grab for the letter, but Uncle Vernon knocks your hand out of the way. The lady stares.

"I'll take them," says Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dinning room.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggests timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon doesn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he is looking for, none of you know. Earlier, he drove into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off you went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspention bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asks Aunt Petunia dully as the sun inches towards the horizon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked you all inside the car, and disappeared.

It starts to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivels.

"It's Monday," he tells his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television." Monday. That reminds you of something. If it is Monday, and you can usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television, then tomorrow, Tuesday, which comes after Monday, that Sunday comes before, would be your eleventh birthday. Of course, your birthday isn't as big a deal as Dudleys, but you still usually get 10% of the number of presents that he had gotten for his last birthday, and dessert. Besides, you aren't eleven every day, just every day for the next year after tomorrow. Perhaps you could persuade Uncle Vernon to give you a copy of the letter instead of your usual birthday presents. He does owe you four this year.

Uncle Vernon is back, and he is smiling. He is also carrying a long, thin package, and doesn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asks what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he says. "Come on ! Everyone out!" It is very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon is pointing at what looks like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock is the most miserable little shack that you can imagine. One thing is certain, there is no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" says Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" A toothless old man comes ambling up to you, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below you.

"I've already got us some rations," says Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!" It is freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain creep down your necks and a chilly wind whips your faces. After what seems like hours they reach the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, leads the way to that broken-down house.

The inside is horrible; it smells strongly of seaweed, the wind whistles through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace is damp and empty. There are only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's rations turn out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tries to start a fire; the the empty chip bags just smoke and shrivel up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" He says cheerfully.

He is in a very good mood. Obviously he thinks nobody stands a chance of reaching you here in a storm to deliver mail. You privately agree, and the thought does cheer you up a little bit, though you wish that you could spend your birthday back home.

As night falls, the promised storm blows up around you. Spray from the high waves splatters the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattles the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia finds a few moldy blankets in the second room and makes up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon go off to the lumpy bed next door, and you are left to find the softest bit of floor you can with just one of the blankets to rap around yourself like a sleeping bag.

The storm rages more and more ferociously as the night goes on. Despite your short night the night before, you can't sleep. You shiver and turn over, trying to get comfortable, your stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores are drowned out by the low rolls of thunder that start near midnight.

You wonder if perhaps Uncle Vernon has done something really bad, and you are going to have to live in hiding like this until you come of age. Will you have to move to a country that doesn't expedite to Britain? Will Dudley and you get to go to any secondary school? It seems to you that for Uncle Vernon to act in such a freakish manor, the situation must be very dire indeed.

The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which is dangling over the edge of the sofa in his wrist, tells you that you'll be eleven in ten minutes' time. Will you look back on the first ten years of your life as the years of happiness and freedom, sharply contrasted from the next eight of a life on the run? You lie and watch your birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys will remember at all with all the excitement, wondering where the cursed letter writer is now.

Five minutes to go. You hear something creak outside. You hope the roof isn't going to fall in, although you might be warmer if it does.

Four minutes to go. Maybe Uncle Vernon will get one up on the letter writer, and you will all be able to go back home to Privet Drive some day.

Three minutes to go. Is that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that. Two minutes to go, what is that funny crunching noise. Is that rock crumbling into the sea? Will you even live long enough to see eleven?

One minute to go and you'll be eleven. Thirty seconds, twenty, ten.

Nine, maybe you'll wake Dudley up, just to annoy him, three, two.

One.

BOOM.

The whole shack shivers and you sit bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone is outside, knocking to come in.


	3. The Keeper of the Keys

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story. Feel free to raid what I have rightfully plundered.

Chapter three

The Keeper of the Keys

BOOM. They knock again. Dudley jerks awake. Where's the cannon?" He asks only half awake.

There is a crash behind you, and Uncle Vernon comes skidding into the room. He is holding a rifle in his hands – now you know what was in the long, thin package he brought with you. He must be in really big trouble if someone was willing to chase him down to this desolate rock in the middle of this storm, and he had prepared for it by getting a gun.

"Who's there?" He shouts. "I warn you, I'm armed!" There is a pause. Then SMASH! The door is hit with such force that it swings clean off its hinges, and with a deafening crash lands flat on the floor. Now you know that you are all doomed. Before you had only suspected.

A giant of a man is standing in the doorway. His face is almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a fierce beard, but you can make out his eyes, glinting dangerously like black beetles under all the hair.

The giant squeezes his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bends down, picks up that door, and fits it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside drops a little. He turns to look at you all.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey." Just like that, his fearsome image is shattered. You don't really know much about hit-men, but you don't think they generally ask their victims for tea before doing them in. The possibly friendly giant strides over to the sofa where Dudley sits frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," says the stranger. So much for friendly.

Dudley squeaks and runs to hide behind his mother, who is crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"And here's Harry!" the giant proclaims, making you wish you had taken the opportunity to hide behind Dudley.

You look up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face, and see that the beetle eyes are crinkled in a smile.

"Last time I saw yeh, yeh was only a baby," says the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes." Uncle Vernon makes a funny rasping noise.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," says the giant; he reaches over the back of the sofa, jerks the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bends it into a knot as easily as if it were made of rubber, and throws it into a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon makes another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on. You don't blame him, kindness in the giants eyes, or not, you are petrified in fear after that display of effortless violent strength.

"Anyway, Harry," says the giant, turning his back on your family, "a very happy birthday teh yeh. Got summat fer yeh here, I might of sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulls out a slightly squashed box. You open it with trembling fingers. Inside is a large, sticky chocolate cake with 'Happy Birthday Harry' written on it green icing.

You look up at the giant, and fear causes you to fall back to perfect manors. "Thank you for the cake, Sir. Might I trouble you with a question?"

"Of course you can, Harry."

"Who are you?" Alright, so much for perfect manners, but at least you were a little polite.

"True, I haven't introduced myself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He holds out an enormous hand and shakes your whole arm. You are pretty sure that Hogwarts was the name of the fictitious school that the blackmailers pretended to invite you to. That means that Mr. Hagrid is one of the people that you have been running from for the past two days. Considering his size and strength, you really can't blain Uncle Vernon for paling when he received blackmail from the giant man.

"What about tea then, eh?" he says, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no teh summat strong if yeh've got it, mind."

His eyes fall on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorts. He bends down over the fireplace; you can't see what he is doing, but when he draws back, a second later, there is a roaring fire there. It fills the whole damp hut with flickering light and you feel warmth wash over you as though you'd sunk into a hot bath.

Mr. Hagrid sits back down on the sofa, which sags under his weight, and begins taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he takes a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut is full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody says a thing while Mr. Hagrid works, but as he slides the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgets a little. Uncle Vernon says sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, either of you." Suddenly you suspect poison, this is a blackmailer after all. Your concerns are not eased when alleged keeper of the keys at a school that allegedly teaches magic, chuckles darkly.

"Yer great pudding of a son don't need fattening anymore, Dursley, don't worry." He passes the sausages to you, and you set the plate down without touching any of the food. You are hungry, and they smell good, but you are also not stupid.

After a moment you decide that it would be best to speak, as Mr. Hagrid at least seems to like you. "I'm sorry Mr. Hagrid, but I was wondering if you might tell us what you were looking for when you came here."

"Call me Hagrid," Mr. Hagrid says, "everyone does. And I came to bring yeh yer Hogwarts letter, heard yeh hadn't been getting it. You'll know all about Hogwarts, of course."

"Er... School that doesn't really exist?"

Mr. Hagrid looks shocked.

"Sorry." You say quickly.

"Sorry!" Barks Mr. Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrink back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't getting yer letters, but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know that Hogwarts was real, for crying out loud! Did yeh never wonder where your parents learned it all?"

Your curiosity overcomes your common sense, fear, and sense of propriety, all at once. "All what?"

"ALL WHAT!" Mr. Hagrid thunders. "Now wait just one second!" He leaps to his feet. In his anger he seems to fill the whole hut. Your family is cowering against the wall. Does it make you a horrible person that you are glad you are not there with them, or just a coward?

"Do you mean to tell me," he growls at your doomed family, "that this boy – _this boy!_ - knows nothing about, about ANYTHING?"

Now that is just unreasonable. You have been to school, and your marks are quite good. You are spurred into doing the incredibly stupid, sometimes you are an idiot, but Mr. Hagrid needs to be distracted, and you know plenty of things about a wide variety of subjects. Besides, you think that you are safer from him then the rest of your family.  
>"I know some things, like reading, writing, and 'rhythmatic, and stuff." You finish strongly. Well done.<p>

Mr. Hagrid simply shakes his head and dismisses the value of all your hard won knowledge. "About our world, I mean. Yer world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?" Two simple words, and as soon as you say them, you know they are a mistake.

"DURSLEY!"

Uncle Vernon, who has gone very pale, whispers something that sounds like "Mimblewimble." Mr. Hagrid stares wildly at you.

"But yeh must know about your mum and dad," he says. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

"What? My, my mum and dad weren't famous. I certainly am _not_ famous."

"Yeh don't know... yeh don't know..." Mr. Hagrid runs his fingers through his hair, fixing you with a bewildered stare. "Yeh don't know what yeh are." he says finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly finds his voice.

"Stop!" he commands. "Stop right there, Sir! I forbid you to tell Harry anything." A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look that Mr. Hagrid now gives him; when Mr. Hagrid speaks again, his every syllable trembles with rage.

"Yeh never told him. Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him. I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! And yeh've kept it from him all these years."

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yells Uncle Vernon in panic.

Aunt Petunia gives a gasp of horror.

Mr. Hagrid proves himself to be a braver man then you, by directly defying Uncle Vernon's anger. Then again, is it still bravery if you are that big? "Ah go boil yer heads, both o' you. Harry, yer a wizard." There is silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind can be heard.

"What?" you ask in disbelief. You would have laughed it off, if not for the looks of horror on the faces of your aunt and uncle. They clearly believe this.

"A wizard, o' course," says Mr. Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groans and sinks even lower, "and a thumping good one, I'd say, once you've been trained up a bit. With a mum and dad like yours, what else would you be. And I reckon it's about time you read your letter." You stretch out your hand to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to

Mr. H. Potter

The Floor

Hut-on-the-Rocks

The Sea

You pull your the letter and read.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,  
>We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.<p>

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Questions explode inside our head like fireworks, and you can't decide which to ask first. After a few moments, you stammer, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"

"Galloping Gorgons, that reminds me," says Mr. Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, a from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulls an owl, a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl, a long quill, and a roll of parchment.

With his tongue between his teeth he scribbles a note that you can read upside down:  
>Dear Professor Dumbledore,<p>

Given Harry his letter.

Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid

Mr. Hagrid rolls up the note, gives it to the owl, which clamps it in its beak, goes to the door, and throws the owl out into the storm. Then he comes back and sits down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

You realize that your mouth is open, and close it quickly.

"Where was I?" Says Mr. Hagrid, but at this moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moves into the firelight.

"He's not going," he says

Mr. Hagrid grunts. "I'd like teh see a great muggle like yeh stop him."

"A what?" you wonder.

"A muggle," says Mr. Hagrid, "It's what we call non-magic folk like them, and it's yer bad luck yeh grew up in a family o' the biggest muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took him in, we'd put a stop to that rubbish," says Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"

You are shocked, again. Really, this whole night has you in a state of shock, but now you are more so. "You knew? You knew I'm a – a – wizard?" Somehow saying that you are a wizard makes it more real. You are horrified that you could be something so abnormal.

"Knew!" shrieks Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that, and disappeared off to that, that school, and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was, a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stops to draw a deep breath and then goes ranting on. It seems she has wanted to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as, as abnormal, and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you! Of course, you turned out normal unlike I had feared. I had even hoped that you might not be a freak, you were always such a good boy. I should have known that you would turn out like them, it must be in your genes." The way she spits the word genes, it is like she thinks that she doesn't have any.

Suddenly you catch on to something. "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash?"

"CAR CRASH!" Mr. Hagrid roars, jumping up so angrily that your family scuttles back, you with them. "How could a car crash kill Lily and James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowing his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"

"But why? What happened?" Your world is so upside down at this point, that you can't seem to put any emotion into the questions, even though you know that the answers may change your life forever.

The anger fades from Mr. Hagrid's face. He looks suddenly anxious. "I never expected this. I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble getting hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don't know if I'm the right person teh tell yeh, but someones got to, yeh can't go off teh Hogwarts not knowing." He throws a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh, mind, I can't tell yeh everything, it's a great mystery, parts of it..." He sits down, stares into the fire for a few seconds, and then says, "It begins, I suppose, with, with a person called, but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows..."

He stalls here, and you feel that you need to insert something. "Mr. Hagrid, I am not, at this point, part of your world."

He looks at you sadly. "No, I guess you weren't for a while, but from now on you are part of our world. And I thought I told you to call me Hagrid, Mr. Hagrid was me dad. Well, I don't like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?"

"Gulpin gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..." Mr. Hagrid, Hagrid, gulps, but no words come out.

"Could you write it down." You suggest.

"Nah, can't spell it. All right – Voldemort." Hagrid shudders as he says the name. "Don't make me say it again. Anyway, this, this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started looking fer followers. Got 'em, too. Some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was getting himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was taking over. 'Course, some stood up to him, and he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of.

"Didn't dare try taking the school, not just then, anyway.

"Now, yer mum and dad were as good a witch and wizard as I ever knew.

"Head boy and girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the mystery is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anything ter do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where yeh was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. Yeh was just a year old.

"He came ter yer house and, and..." Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry, but it's that sad, knew yer mum and dad, and nicer people yeh couldn't find, anyway... You-Know-Who killed 'em. And then, and this is the real mystery of the thing, he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killing by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how yeh got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh. Took care of yer mum and dad, yer house even, but it didn't work on you, and that's why yer famous Harry. No-one ever lived after he decided ter kill them, no one except you, and he'd killed some o' the best wiches and wizards of the age, the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts, and yeh was only a baby, and yeh lived.

Something very painful is going on in your mind. As Hagrid's story comes to a close, you see again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than you ever remember having seem it before, and you remember something else, for the first time in your life: a high cold, cruel laugh.

Hagrid is watching you sadly. "Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot.."

"Load of old tosh," says Uncle Vernon. He certainly seems to have gotten back his courage; he is glaring at Hagrid and his fists are clenched.

"Now, listen up, Harry. I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing that won't go away with time and discipline, and as for all this about your parents, well they were weirdos, no denying it, and world's better off without them in my opinion, asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types, just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end, don't want you to come to the same end, so it's best that you stay away from these sorts or you're liable to meet the same end as they did, that'd make your aunt and I aweful sad after all we done to raise you, and you might be putting us and your cousin at risk too, I'll not have you going off to that school." You are pretty sure that was the longest run on sentence you have ever heard, and it might have gone on even longer, if Hagrid had not chosen that very moment to demonstrate Uncle Vernon's point about the dangers of associating with magical people by leaping up from the sofa, and drawing a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat.

He points it at your uncle like a sword, and says, "I'm warning you, Dursley, I'm warning you, one more word..." Suddenly finding himself in danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a beared giant, Uncle Vernon's courage fails him again; he flattens himself against the wall and falls silent.

"That's better," Hagrid says, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sags right down to the floor. You, meanwhile, still have questions to ask, hundreds of them. The shock seems to have finally reached a point where your emotions have completely shut down. You know that you should be feeling something, but all you can feel is – nothing. As cold logic decends on your brain, you realize that Uncle Vernon may have a point, but that there are several important points of information that have to be established first.

You take advantage of the momentary silence to take control of the conversation, possibly for the first time in your life. "Mr. Hagrid, would you mind explaining to me what happened to Voldemort? I do hope he is not still around killing people, or worse ruling the world, but that seems rather likely."

Hagrid pails, and doesn't even object to your use of his formal name. "Nah, nothing like that. It's a good question though, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill yeh. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest mystery, see... he was getting more and more powerful, why'd he go.

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, biding his time. Like, but I don't believe it. People who was on his side came back ter outs. Some of them came outta kinda trances. Don't reckon they could've done if he was coming back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause something about yeh finished him, Harry.

"There was something going on that night he hadn't counted on; I donno what it was, no one does, but something about yeh stumped him, all right." Hagrid looks at you with a warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but you, instead of feeling proud feel quite worried.

"If I somehow destroyed his powers, and he had all these people following him, why haven't some of them come after me and killed me to avenge his demise?"

"Ah, well, I don't reckon I fully understand that, but Dumbledore did something that he could only do because the magic in yer scare was so fresh, and made it so that nobody could hurt anyone who lived in their," here he points to your family, "house."

You nod at that, you don't really care how the magic works anyway, you just want to know that they are safe, and that you are safe for that matter. "So, won't that mean that I would be in danger if I were to go to that school of yours? I wouldn't still be living there, would I?"

Hagrid pales, as he considers for the first time that you might actually not choose to go to Hogwarts, rather silly of him considering that Uncle Vernon has been insisting that you won't go from the start. "Yeh would be living at Hogwarts while yeh're at school, and there ain't no place safer than that. Yeh'd still have ter come back ter 'em fer holidays, but yeh'd be safe at both places. Harry, yeh gotta come ter Hogwarts, yeh're the Boy-Who-Lived. Our whole world would go mad if yeh didn't. Besides, don't yeh want ter learn magic?"

You consider him. "I suppose that we have already been mixed up with you lot for some time, if magic has been protecting us. It seems like we are already well known among witches and wizards, because of what I allegedly did as a baby. That means that we don't really have anything to loose by me going to this school, except perhaps money. At the same time, I don't plan to live at home for the rest of my life, so I could use to have some idea about the people who might come after me. Clearly we are not able to hide from your kind how we are. This stupid rock is proof of that. What do you guys think?"

Uncle Vernon was starting to turn purple, but he looks a bit mollified now that you have asked for his input. "Like I said, you're not going. You're going to Stonewall High, and you'll be better off for it. I'll not have you mixed up in some crazy cult. I've read those letters and you would need all sorts of rubbish, spell books and wands and..."

"If he wants ter go, a great muggle like you won't stop him," growls Hagrid.

You suspect that he would go on, but you stop him there. "Thank you Hagrid, but we were hearing from my uncle now." You turn to Uncle Vernon, and wait expectantly.

"I am not paying for some crackpot old fool to teach him magic tricks!"

From the look of Hagrid's face, it is clear that Uncle Vernon has finally gone too far. He seizes his umbrella and whirls it over his head. "NEVER INSULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME!" He brings his umbrella swishing down through the air to point and Dudley, there is a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley is dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his bottom, howling in pain. When he turns his back on you, you see a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Uncle Vernon roars, pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room. He casts one last terrified look at Hagrid and slams the door behind them, leaving you alone with the giant.

Hagrid looks down at his umbrella and strokes his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper, but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do." He casts a sideways look at you under his bushy eyebrows. "Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts. I'm, er, not supposed ter do magic, strictly speaking. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh and get yer letters to yeh and stuff, one o' the reasons I was so keen ter tale on the job."

"Well, then you really shouldn't have done that then sir." You are rather annoyed that he would try to turn your cousin into a pig, and then insult him when it didn't work. "Why aren't you supposed to do magic?"

"Oh, well, I was at Hogwarts meself, but I, er, got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half and everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

Your anger dissipates, and the felling of emptiness is back, mingled with apprehension. Here is a dangerous giant who was expelled and forbidden to do magic. "Why were you expelled?"

"It's getting late, and we've got lots ter do tomorrow. Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books and that." He takes off his thick black coat and throws it to you. "You can kip under that. Don't mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

You recognizes that he is not going to tell you, and you are used to leaving questions unanswered. Your aunt trained you well, and you think you may be starting to see why, come to think of it. "Okay. My family really can't afford the school stuff. How are we going to get the books without money?"

Hagrid smiles as he lies down on the couch that had been Dudley's. "Yeh didn't think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything, did yeh. First stop tomorrow will be the bank ter get yeh some o' that money."

You nod and curl up under the coat. Looks like Hagrid will get his way, and you will be going off to learn magic. The idea scares you, as your emotions start to slowly return. The idea of magic is so weird, so freaky. Despite your aversion to anything unusual, you can't help that a small part of you is also excited. You are going to learn magic. Somehow, that seems terribly, well, cool.


	4. Diagon Ally

Disclaimer: I learned in my business law class that the US constitution prohibits ownership of one person by another. Unfortunately for you, both you and the lady who owns you are British, so that doesn't help you. Guess that you, Harry Potter, are still owned by a lady named J. K. Rowling.

Chapter Four

Diagon Ally

You wake early the next morning. Although you can tell that it is daylight, you keep your eyes shut tight.

'It was a dream,' you tell yourself firmly. 'I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me a I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes, I'll be back in my nice cupboard.' There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.

See, there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, you think. You must have overslept again. You really need to stop doing that. You still don't open your eyes, you can't decide if it was a good dream, but part of you wants to think that it was.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"All right," you mumble, "I'm getting up." You sit up and Hagrid's heavy coat falls off you. The hut is full of sunlight, the storm is over, Hagrid himself is asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there is an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

You scramble to your feet, feeling happy despite yourself. It is as though a large balloon is swelling inside you, pushing out the guilt that you will soon be betraying everything you ever stood for by learning magic. You go straight to the window and jerk it open. The owl swoops in and drops the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who doesn't wake up. The owl then flutters onto the floor and begins to attack Hagrid's coat.

"Don't do that." You try to wave the owl out of the way, but it snaps its beak fiercely at you and carries on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid!" you say loudly. "There's an owl."

"Pay him." Hagrid grunts into the sofa.

"What?"

"He wants paying fer delivering the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets; bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... Finally you pull out a handful of strange-looking coins.

"Give him five Knuts," Hagrid says sleepily.

"Knuts?"

"The little bronze ones." You count out five little bronze coins, and the owl holds out his leg so that you can put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flies off through the open window.

Hagrid yawns loudly, sits up, and stretches.

"Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London and buy all yer stuff fer school." You are turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. "First stop for us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold, and I wouldn't say no ter a bit o' yer birthday cake neither."

"Wizards have banks?" This just seems so normal for something a freakish as magic. Somehow the existence of a wizards' bank makes you feel better about the whole thing, and the balloon in your chest swells even bigger.

"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."

So much for feeling better about the whole thing. "Goblins?"

"Yeah, so yeh'd be mad ter try and rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe, 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hagwarts business." Hagrid draws himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetching you, getting things form Gringotts, knows he can trust me, see."

"Got everything? Come on, then."

You follow Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky is quite clear now, and the sea gleams in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon hired is still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.

"How did you get here?" You ask, looking around for another boat.

"Flew."

"Flew?"

"Yeah, but we'll go back in this. Not supposed ter use magic now I've got yeh." You settle down in the boat, still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying. "Seems a shame ter row, though. If I was ter, er, speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentioning it at Hogwarts?"

"Of course not." Despite yourself, you are eager to see some magic that actually works right. Hagrid pulls out the pink umbrella again, tapping it twice on the side of the boat, and you speed off toward land.

"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?"

"Spells, enchantments," Hagrid unfolds his newspaper as he speaks. "They say there's dragons guarding the high highsecurity vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way. Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger trying ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."

You sit and think about this while Hagrid reads his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. You have learned from Uncle Vernon that people like to be left alone while they do this.

"Ministry o' Magic messing things up as usual." Hagrid mutters, turning the page.

This catches you by surprise, and comforts you even more than the bank. "There's a Ministry of Magic?" you ask, before you can stop yourself.

"'Course. They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, asking fer advice." Hagrid turns back to his paper, and you sit in silence until the boat bumps gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folds up his newspaper, and you clamber up the stone steps onto the street.

Passersby stare a lot at Hagrid as you walk through the little town to the station. You can't blame them. Not only is Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, but he keeps pointing at perfectly ordinary things, like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Harry. Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

You rather wish he would keep these thoughts to himself, because he is acting just plain weird. You don't say anything of course, you don't want him to feel constrained in his speech because of you. It wouldn't be your place to say.

Still, you feel quite free to distract him. "Hagrid, did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"

"Well, so they say. Crikey, I'd like a dragon."

You didn't think that you could be surprised again after last night. Shows what you knew. "You'd like one?"

"Wanted one ever since I was a kid, here we go." You have reached the station. There is a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who doesn't understand 'muggle money,' as he calls it, gives the bills to you so you can buy the tickets.

People stare more then ever on the train. Hagrid takes up two seats and sits knitting what looks like a canary-yellow circus tent. You rather wish he wouldn't.

"Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asks as he counts stitches. You take the parchment envelope out of your pocket. "Good. There's a list of everything yeh need.

You unfold a second piece of paper you hadn't noticed the night before and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

UNIFORM

First-year students will require:

Three sets of plain working robes (black)

One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupils clothes should carry name tags

COURSE BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

_The Standard Book of Spells_ (Grade 1)

by Miranda Goshawk

_A History of Magic _by Bathilda Bagshot

_Magical Theory _by Adalbert Waffling

_A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration _by Edmetic Switch

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fung_i

by Phyllida Spore

_Magical Drafts and Potions _by Arsenius Jigger

_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_

by Newt Scamander

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_

by Quentin Tremble

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope set

1 brass scales

Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS

ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

"Can we buy all this in London?" you wonder aloud.

"If yeh know where ter go."

You have never been to London before. Although Hagrid seems to know where he is going, he is obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

"I don't know how the muggles manage without magic," he says as you climb a brocken-down escalator that leads up to a bustling road lined with shops.

Hagrid is so huge that he parts the crowd easily; all you have to do is keep close behind him. You pass book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looks as though it could sell you a magic wand. This is just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. This is refreshing, and you saver the normalcy while you still can, the balloon from earlier having been replaced by apreahention at the fact that you are about to enter a world that you are sure will be freakishly weird. You are starting to wonder why you ever thought the learning of magic would be a good idea.

Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath all this wonderful normalcy? Are there really shops that sell spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that someone has cooked up. If you hadn't seen Hagrid do magic, you might think so; yet somehow, even though it is all so ridiculous, you can't help but trust Hagrid.

"This is it," Hagrid says, coming to a halt, "The Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place." It is a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, you wouldn't have noticed it was even there. The people hurrying by don't even glance at it. Their eyes slide from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they can't see The Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, you have the most peculiar feeling that only you and Hagrid can see it. Before you can mention this, Hagrid steers you inside.

For a famous place, it is very dark and shabby. A few old women are sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them is smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat talks to the old bartender, who lacks much in the way of hair, and looks like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stops when you walk in. Everyone seems to know Hagrid; they wave and smile at him, and the bartender reaches for a glass. "The usual, Hagrid?"

"Can't Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business." Hagrid claps his great hand on your shoulder and makes your knees buckle.

"Good Lord," says the bartender as he peers at you, "is this, can this be... ?" The Leaky Cauldron reaches a new level of silence.

"Bless my soul," whispers the old bartender, "Harry Potter. What an honor." He hurries out from behind his bar, rushes toward you, and seizes your hand, tears in his eyes.

"Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back." You don't know what to say. Everyone looks at you. The old woman with the pipe puffs on it without realizing that it has gone out. Hagrid beams.

Then, there is a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, you find youtself shaking hands with everyone in The Leaky Cauldron.

"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand; I'm all of a flutter,"

"Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

You recognize him. "I've seen you before! You bowed to me once in a shop."

Mr. Diggle's top hat falls off in his excitement. "He remembers! Did you hear that? He remembers me!" You shake his hand again. Doris Crockford keeps coming back for more.

A pale young man makes his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes twitches.

"Professor Quirrell!" Hagrid anounces him. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"P-P-Potter, c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you."

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Querrell?"

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts." He seems as though he would rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter." He laughs nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose. I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book of vampires, m-myself." He looks terrified at the very thought.

The others don't leave you alone to talk with your nervous future professor. It takes almost ten minutes for you to get yourself away from them all. At last, Hagrid manages to make himself heard over the babble.

"Must get on, lots ter buy. Come on, Harry." Doris Crockford shakes your hand one last time, and Hagrid leads you though the bar and out into a small walled courtyard, where nothing but a trash can and a few weeds are stand behind the building.

Hagrid grins at you.

"Told yeh, didn't I. Told yeh, yeh was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was trembling ter meet yeh, mind yeh, he's usually trembling."

"Is he always that nervous?"

"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studying outta books, but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag; never been the same since.

"Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me umbrella."

Vampires. Hags. Your head is swimming, and you begin to wonder if it might not be too late to have Hagrid take you back home and so you can try to forget about the whole thing. If only those bloody letters hadn't been so persistent. Hagrid, meanwhile counts bricks in the wall above the trash can.

"Three up... two across. Right, stand back, Harry." He taps the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he touched quivers, it wriggles, in the middle, a small hole appears, it grows wider and wider, a second later you face an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twists and turns out of sight.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley." Hagrid grins at your amazement. As you step through the archway, you turn back, and see the archway shrink instantly back into a solid wall.

The day is warm, and the sun shines brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Wait, Cauldron's?

"Cauldron – All Sizes – Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible," a sign hanging over them declares.

You guess you can get cauldrons in London afterall.

"Yeah, you'll be needing one," Hagrid says, "but we gotta get yer money first." As you look around the rest of the alley, you wish you had about eight more eyes. Cauldrons are just the start of the madness. A plump woman outside an Apothecary shakes her head as you pass, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad..."

A low, soft hoot comes from a dark shop with a sign identifying it as Eeylops Owl Emporium. Several boys of about your age have their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," you hear one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand, fastest ever..." There are shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments you have never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleen and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...

"Gringotts," Hagrid interrupts your spectating.

You have reached a snowy white building that towers over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, is, "Yeah, that's a goblin." Hagrid wispers as you walk up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin is about a head shorter than you.

A pointed beard hangs from the chin of his swarthy, clever face, and you notice very long fingers and feet. He bows as you walk inside. Now you face a second pair of doors, silver this time. With words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take head

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

"Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try and rob it," Hagrid says.

A pair of goblins bows to you through the silver doors and you are in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins sit on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses.

There are too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins show people in and out of these. You make for the counter.

"Morning." Hagrid addresses a free goblin. "We've come ter take some moeney outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."

"You have his key, Sir?"

"Got it here somewhere." Hagrid starts emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkles his nose. You watch a goblin on your right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals. At last, Hagrid holds up a tiny golden key. "Got it."

The goblin looks at it closely. "That seems to be in order."

"And I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore. It's about You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen." The goblin reads the letter carefully.

"Very well." He hands it back to Hagrid. "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!" Griphook is yet another goblin. Once Hagrid crams all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, the two of you follow Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" You wonder aloud.

"Can't tell yeh that. Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n me job's worth ter tell yeh that."

Griphook holds the door open for you. You expected more marble, and are surprised. You are in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It slopes steeply downeard and rail tracks lead off on the floor. Griphook whistles and a small cart hurles up the tracks to you. You climb in, Hagrid with some difficulty, and are off.

At first you just hurtle through a maze of twisted passages. You try to remember, left right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it is soon impossible. The rattling cart seems to know its own way, because Griphook doesn't steer.

Your eyes sting as the cold air rushes past them, but you keep them wide open. Once, you think you see a blaze of fire at the end of the passage and twist around to see if it is a dragon, but it is too late as you plunge even deeper, passing an underground lake with huge stalactites and stalagmites growing from the ceiling and floor.

You are tempted to ask Hagrid what the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite is, but he looks like he is going to be sick, and you remember that it is not polite to ask questions. He looks very green by the time the cart stops at last beside a small door in the passage wall. Hagrid gets out and has to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

Griphook unlocks the door. A lot of green smoke comes billowing out, and as it clears, you gasp. Inside, mounds of gold coins rest on the dusty floor. Colums of silver sit beside them, surounded by Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," smiles Hagrid.

All yours, it is incredible. The Dursleys can't have known about this, or they'd have wanted to answer the letters. This would be more then enough to send you to Smeltings, you are sure of it. To think, all this time that they have been complaining about how much it costs to raise children, and you have a small fortune buried deep under London.

Hagrid helps you pile some of it into a bag.

"The gold ones are Galleons," he explains. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon, and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle. It's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turns to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," Griphook replies.

You go even deeper now, and faster. The air becomes colder and colder as you hurtle round tight corners. You rattle over an underground ravine, and you lean over the side to try and see what is down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groans and pulls you back by the scruff of your neck.

Vault seven hundred as thirteen has no keyhole.

"Stand back," says Griphook importantly. He strokes the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simple melts away. "If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" you ask.

"About once every ten years." A rather nasty grin splits Griphook's face.

You figure that something rather extraordinary has to be inside this top security vault, and you lean forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least. It is empty. Wait, now you notice a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picks it up and tucks it deep inside his coat. You wonder what it is, but know better than to ask.

"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way beck, it's best if I keep me mouth shut."

One wild cart ride later, you stand blinking in the sunlight outside of Gringotts. You don't know where to go first now that you have a bag full of money. You don't have to know how many Galleons there are to a pound to know that you are holding more money than you've ever had in your whole life, more money than even Dudley has ever had.

"Might as well get yer uniform." Hagrid nods at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron. I hate them Gringotts carts." He does look a bit sick, so you enter Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous to be alone in this weird world.

Madam Makin is a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.

"Hogwarts, dear. Got the lot here, another young man being fitted up just now, in fact." In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale pointed face stands on a footstool while a second witch pins up his long black robes. Madam Malking stands you on a stool next to him and slips a long robe over your head so she can start pinning it to the right length.

"Hello," the boy says, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes"

"My father's next door buying my books and Mother's up the street looking at wands." The boy has a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one, and I'll smuggle it in somehow. Have you got your own broom?"

"No."

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No." You have no clue what Quidditch is actually.

"I do, father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No."

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family has been. Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"No."

"Oh... I say, look at that man!" The boy suddenly notices hagrid standing at the front window grinning at you and pointing at two large ice creams to show that he can't come in.

"That's Hagrid."

"I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"Gamekeeper."

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's sort of savage, lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed." The boy seems to notice that Hagrid is watching you. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"Dead."

"Oh, sorry." He doesn't sound sorry. "But, they were our kind, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname anyway?"

Before you can answer, Madam Malkin says, "That's you done, my dear."

You are not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, and hop down from the footstool with one last word. "Potter."

You leave him speechless and go to enjoy your ice cream with Hagrid as you silently reflect on what you learned from the boy. It seems that normal people in this new world know much more than you.

"What's up?"

"Nothing," you lie. You stop to buy parchment and quills. You cheer up a bit when you find a bottle of ink that changes color as you write. That is actually rather wicked. As you leave the shop, you ask Hagrid, "What's Quidditch?"

"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgetting how little yeh know... not knowing about Quidditch!"

That doesn't make you feel any better, so you tell him about the blond boy in Madam Malkin's. "- and he said that people from muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."

"Yer not from a muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were, he's grown up knowing yer name if his parents are wizarding folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it? Some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' muggles; look at yer mum!"

"So what is Quddich?"

"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like, like football in the muggle world, everyone follows Qudditch. Played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls; sorta hard ter explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuffs are a lot o' duffers, but I'd say better Hufflepuff than Slytherin. There's not a single witch of wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."

"Vol-," Hagrid shivers as you start to say the name, "sorry, You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"

"Years and years ago," Hagrid answers.

"You said that there are four houses, if you don't mind me asking, what are the other two?"

"Gryfindor, that's were yer parents were, and Ravenclaw, fer smart people who spend all their time studying and the like."

You figure that if your parents were in Gryfindor, then you should aim for that one. Family loyalty and all that.

You buy your school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves reach to the ceiling and books cover every inch. Books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the sizes of postage stamps covered in silk; books full of peculiar symbols, and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything he didn't have to, would be wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost has to drag you away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tougue-Tying, and Much, Much More) by Vindictus Viridian.

"I was trying to find out how to curse that blond boy."

"I'm not saying that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic on other students outside o' class, and anyway, yeh couldn't work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more studying before yeh get ter that level" Hagrid doesn't let you buy a solid gold cauldron either, "It says pewter on yer list." but you get a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then you visit the Apothecary, which is fascinating enough to make up for the horrible smell. Barrels of slimy stuff stands on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders line the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hang from the ceiling. While Hagrid asks the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for you, you examine silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each, and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checks your list again.

"Just yer wand left, and yeah, and I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."

You feel yourself go red. You just met him, he really doesn't have to. You start to tell him this, but he interrupts you.

"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at, and I don't like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail and everything."

Twenty minutes later, you leave Eeylop's Owl Emporium, which was dark and full of rustling and flickering jewel-bright eyes. You now carry a large cage that holds a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. You can't stop stammering your thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell. Maybe he wasn't scarred, but just really grateful to be alive.

"Just Ollivanders left now; only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand." A magic wand... The thing you have been dreading and looking forward to. Once you get your wand, you will really be able to do magic, but you will no-longer be able to pretend to be a nice normal muggle. It feels like a point of no return.

The last shop is narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. That settles it, you want your wand and you want it from here. Imagine how old that is, 382 B.C... A single wand lays on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rings somewhere in the depths of the shop as you step inside. It is a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sits in to wait. You feel as though you have entered an awesome library; you swallow a lot of new questions that occur to you, and look instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. The back of your neck prickles, as you appreciate just how old this place must be. The very dust and silence in here tingle with some secret magic. You imagine that this is how the most sacred of places must feel. Permanent and unchanging.

"Good afternoon," says a soft voice. You jump. Hagrid jumps too, and a loud crunching noice disrupts the spell of the room as he gets quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man stands before you, his wide pale eyes shining like moons through the shadows of the shop. Somehow he belongs here, as though he were the original Ollivander, who had seen the passing of millennial through pale unchanging eyes.

"Hello," you say awkwardly aware of your own youth.

"Ah yes, yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter. You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday that she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work. Mr. Ollivander moves closer to you, his eyes never seem to need to blink. You think this man might be the coolest person you have ever met.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it; it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course." Mr. Ollivander has come so close that he and you are almost nose to nose. You can see your reflection in his misty eyes.

"And that's where..." Mr. Ollivander touches the lightning scar on your forehead with a long, white finger. "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..." He shakes his head and spots Hagrid.

"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir, yes."

"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snaped it in half when you got expelled." Mr. Ollivander is suddenly stern.

"Er – yes, they did, yes. I've still got the pieces, though."

"But you don't use them."

"Oh, no sir." Hagrid replies quickly. You notice that he grips his pink umbrella tightly as he speaks, and think back to Dudleys fate last night.

"Hmmm." Mr. Ollivander gives Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now. Mr. Potter. Let me see." He pulls out a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er, well, I'm right-handed"

"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measures you from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit, and round your head. As he measures, he says, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get as good results with another wizard's wand." You suddenly realize that the tape measure, which is measuring between your nostrils, is doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander flitters around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"That will do." The tape measure crumples into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon hearstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it an give it a wave. You take the wand and wave it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatches it out of your hand almost at once. "Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try" Before he can finish he has snatched it back out of your hand.

"No, no. Here ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out." You try and try. You have no idea what Mr. Ollivander is waiting for. The pile of tried wands mounts higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulls from the shelves, the happier he seems to become.

"Tricky customer, eh. Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere. I wonder now; yes, why not? Unusual combination. Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple." You take the wand. You feel a sudden warmth in your fingers. You raise the wand above your head, bring it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shoots from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the wall. Hagrid whoops and claps and Mr. Ollivander cries, "Oh, brovo! Yes, indeed, oh very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious..." He puts your wand back into its box and wraps it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious..."

You almost feel that you are meant to ask, and it spurs you on. "Sorry, but what's curious?"

Mr. Ollivander fixes you with a pale stare. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather, just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, why its brother gave you that scar." You swallow. "Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think that we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things, terrible, yes, but great." You shiver. You aren't sure you like Mr. Ollivander quite as much anymore. You don't want to do great things, you just want to be normal. You pay seven gold Galleons for your wand, and Mr. Ollivander bows you from his shop.

The late afternoon sun hangs low in the sky as you and Hagrid make your way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back though The Leaky Cauldron, now empty. You don't speak at all as you walk down the road; you don't even notice how much people gawk at you on the Underground, laden as you are with all your funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on your lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; you only realize where you are when Hagrid taps you on the shoulder.

"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves?"

He buys you a hamburger and you sit down on the plastic seats to eat. You keep looking around because here, back in the normal world, everything seems so strange somehow.

"Yeh all right, Harry? Yer very quiet."

You aren't sure you can explain. You want so badly to be normal, but now you find yourslef liking this magic world, your new world more and more, and even there, you can't be normal, and now the normal seems weird. Maybe you don't even understand yourself. Maybe you are just in shock.

You chew your hamburger, trying to find words. "Everyone thinks I'm special. All those people in The Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but I don't want to be special, I just want to be normal. How can they expect great things from me. I'm famous, and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when... well the night my parents died. Why does my wand have to be curious, and why does everyone have to expect me to do great things. Why can't I just be normal?"

"Don't you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hagwarts, you'll be just fine, just be yourself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out and that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts, I did, still do 'smatter of fact." Hagrid helps you onto the train that will take you back to the Dursleys, then hands you an envelope.

Yer ticket fer Hogwarts. First o' September, King's Cross, it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me... See yeh soon, Harry." The train pulls out of the station. You watch Hagrid until he is out of sight; you rise in your seat and press your nose against the window, but you blink, and when you open your eyes, Hagrid is gone.


	5. The Journey From Platform 9 and 34

Disclaimer: I picked up my shovel and began my project with a series of little digs. I do not own this work. _Dig._ Harry Potter was written by a much better writer than me. _Dig._ She, J. K. Rowling has shared ownership with several people, but I am not one of them. _Dig. _No money will ever be made off of this work. _Dig._

AN: Sorry about not posting this yesterday. It was written and looked over by my betas two weeks ago, but I just forgot to upload yesterday. Chapters six and seven are also writen and looked over by one of my betas, so they should come out on schedule, if the other one finishes in time. Eight and nine are also written.

Chapter Five

The Journey From Platform nine and Three-Quarters

Your last month with the Dursleys isn't fun. Dudley is scared of you now, and your aunt and uncle have taken to ignoring you.

Half-terrified, half-furious, they act like any chair with you in it is empty. Although you prefer this to outright anger, it becomes rather depressing after a while.

As a result, you keep mostly to your new room with your new owl for company. You decide to call her Hedwig, a name you found in A History of Magic. Your school books are interesting, and you read them in the hope of not feeling completely out of place when you get to Hogwarts. You find the book on magical history especially interesting and helpful in your attempt to make sense of your new world. You lie on your bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleases. It is lucky that Aunt Petunia doesn't come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig keeps bringing back dead mice. Every night before you go to sleep, you tick off another day on the piece of paper you have pinned to the wall, counting down to the day you both dread and dream of, September the first.

On the last day of August, you figure that you can't put off talking to your family any longer, so you go to the living room where they are watching a quiz show on television. You clear your throat to let them know you are there. Dudley screams and runs from the room.

"Er, Uncle Vernon." Uncle Vernon grunts to show that he is listening. "Er, I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to, well to go to Hogwarts." Uncler Vernon grunts again.

"Would it be all right it you gave me a lift?"

Grunt.

You suppose that means yes. "Thank you."

You are about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually speaks. "Funny way to get to a wizard's school, that train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they? Where is this school, anyway?"

"I don't know." You ponder this for the first time, and pull the ticket Hagrid gave you out of your pocket. "I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock."

Uncle Vernon just stares, but Aunt Petunia nods in resignation. "Platform what?" he asks.

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Don't talk rubbish, there is no platform nine and three-quarters."

Aunt Petunia interrupts him, probably a first. "Actually, that is where _she_ always got on _her_ train." There is no need to ask who _she_ is.

Uncle Vernon is clearly as surprised by this as you are. "Then how, did she manage to get onto a platform that doesn't exist?"

"I've told you, it does exist. I've seen it. You just have to walk through a freakish transparency that looks like a wall to get to it."

That stops him for a moment, but then he turns back to you. "I just don't understand. I knew your mum was a freak, but I always thought better of you. You seemed so normal, I was even proud of you at times. Why? Why would you choose to associate with... with those _people_?" There is clear pain in his voice, and venom in the last word. You didn't fully realize until just now how much pain you were causing your family. You feel lower than a worm.

"I have to." You whisper in shame. "These people, they, I don't know. They made me into some kind of hero. When we went into their world, they all just wanted to shake my hand. I feel like if I turn my back on them, like I'll be failing some duty or something. I don't know." You think for a moment, and realize that there is more to it. "Also, well, I feel like I would, well, like I would be letting down my parents. I don't know, I just, well, I feel that this is what they would have wanted."

This time it is Aunt Petunia who speaks up, her voice full of more concern than you have ever heard in it, at least towards you. "Your mum and I used to be close, before those people took her from me. Horrible greasy gits. She chose them, and she died for it. Not when you were one. My sweet sister died long before that, killed, no, destroyed by people like your dad. He was always an unpleasant git. Him and that Snape boy. Harry, don't make her mistake."

You didn't think it was possible, but you feel even worse now. You wish you could find a hole and climb inside it. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this." With that, you turn and run back upstairs.

As you dash back into your room, you hear Uncle Vernon call out, "All right, we'll take you to King's Cross."

You wake at five the next morning and can't manage to make yourself go back to sleep. You get up and pull on some jeans and a t-shirt, because you don't want to make your family see you in your robes; you'll change on the train. You check your Hogwarts list again, not wanting to forget anything, see Hedwig shut safely back into her cage, and then go back to lie on your bed; feeling guilty and at the same time sorry for yourself while you wait for the rest of your family to get up. Two hours later, your huge, heavy trunk has been led into the car, Aunt Petunia has talked Dudley into sitting next to you, and you are off.

You reach King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumps your trunk onto a cart and wheels it into the station for you. He stops dead, facing the platforms. "Well, there you are. Platform nine - platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, so I guess you just walk into the wall and hope you don't crash. Have a good term then."

He watches you as you take your cart and walk at the brick wall between the two platforms. You don't think he quite believes Aunt Petunia, and has to see you vanish behind the wall for himself. Really, you're not sure that you believe Aunt Petunia and are rather worried about the rapidly approaching brick wall. It looks very solid to you. As your cart is about to hit the wall, you close your eyes and wince.

Nothing.

You keep walking, and open your eyes. A scarlet steam engine waits next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead says 'Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock.' You look behind yourself, and see a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. You have done it.

Smoke from the engine drifts over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wind here and there between their legs. Owls hoot to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages are already filling up with students, some leaning out of windows to talk to their families, some claiming seats for friends that have not arrived yet.

You push your cart off down the platform trying to determine the best place to sit.

You pass a round faced boy who is struggling to keep his toad in his hands, while an old lady addresses him. "Oh, Neville, do put that toad away before it gets lost again."

A boy with dreadlocks carries a box towards a group of friends.

You press on through the crowd until you find an empty compartment near the end of the train, figuring that it is better to be further from the smoke of the engine. You put Hedwig inside first and then start to shove and heave your trunk toward the train door. You get it to the steps, before realizing that you will have to lift it up. About twenty minutes later, you are still trying to get it onto the first step, and have dropped it painfully on your foot more times than you want to think about. It is just too heavy for you.

"Want a hand?" a red-haired boy that looks several years older than you, asks.

"Yes, please," you pant.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!" Evidently the redhead has an identical twin named Fred, and with the help of the twins, your trunk is at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

"Thanks." you say, pushing your sweaty hair out of your eyes.

"What's that?" One of the twins points at your scar.

"Blimey," says the other twin, "are you?"

"He is. Aren't you?"

"What?" you wonder.

"Harry Potter," the twins say as one.

"Oh, him," you reply. "I mean, yes, I am." The two boys gawk at you, and you feel yourself turning red. Then, to your relief, a voice comes floating in through the train's open door.

"Fred. George. Are you there?"

"Coming, Mum." With a last look at you, they hop off the train.

You sit down next to the window where, half hidden, you can watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they say. A plump woman with flaming red hair talks to the twins and a younger boy, also red-haired. You suppose she must be their mother. She has just taken out her handkerchief.

"Ron, you've got something on your nose." The youngest boy tries to jerk out of the way, but she grabs him and begins rubbing the end of his nose.

"Mum, geroff" He wiggles free.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" mocks one of the twins.

"Shut up," says Ron.

"Where's Percy?" asks their mum.

"He's coming now." A red-haired boy even older than the twins comes striding into sight. He has already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and you notice a shiny silver badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

"Can't stay long, Mother," he says. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two cmpartments to themselves."

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" asks one of the twins, in mock suprise.

"You should have said something, we had no idea."

"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it"

"Once..."

"Or twice..."

"A minute..."

"All summer..." You are actually rather impressed at their ability to finish each other's sentences like that. It can't have been easy to get so good at it, even if they are identical twins.

"Oh, shut up," says Percy the Prefect.

"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" asks one of the twins.

"Because he's a prefect," answers their mum fondly. "Alright, dear, well, have a good ter,, send me an owl when you get there." She kisses Percy on the cheek and he leaves. Then, she turns to the twins.

"Now, you two. This year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've... you've blown up a toilet or..."

"Blown up a toilet. We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mum."

"It's not funny. And look after Ron."

"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."

"Shut up," says Ron again. His nose is still pink where his mum had rubbed it.

"Hey, Mum, guess what. Guess who we just met on the train." You lean back quickly so that they can't see you spying on them.

"Who?"

"Harry Potter!"

You hear a little girl's voice. "Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, please..."

"No Ginny, the poor boy isn't something you goggle at in a zoo. Did you really see him, Fred? How do you know?"

"Asked him. Saw his scar. It's really there, like lightning."

"Poor dear."

"Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?"

Their mum suddenly becomes very stern. "I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don't you dare. As though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school."

"All right, keep your hair on." A whistle sounds.

"Hurry up!" their mum says, and the three boys clamber onto the train. They lean out the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister begins to cry.

"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."

"George!"

"Only joking, Mum." The train begins to move. You see the boys' mum waving and their sister, also redheaded, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathers too much speed, then he falls back and waves.

You watch the girl and her mum disappear as the train rounds the corner. Houses flash past the window. You stare at them as they fly by, wondering what you have gotten yourself into, and whether you will regret getting on this train for the rest of your life. The redheaded family seemed normal, and that is very reassuring.

The door of the compartment slides open and the youngest redheaded boy comes in.

"Anyone sitting there?" He points at the seat across from you. "Everywhere else is full."

You shake your head and the boy sits down. He glances at you, and then looks quickly out of the window, pretending he hasn't looked. You notice that he still has a black mark on his nose.

"Hey, Ron." The twins are back.

"Listen, we're going down to the middle of the train; Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."

Ron shivers slightly. "Right."

"Harry," says the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley, and this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then."

"Bye," you and Ron reply. The twins slide the compartment door shut behind them.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurts out.

You nod.

"Oh, well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes. And have you really got, you know...?" He points at your forehead.

You pull back your bangs to show your scar. Ron stares.

"So that's where You-Know-Who..."

"Yes," you cut him off, "but I can't remember it."

"Nothing?" Ron asks eagerly.

"Well, I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else."

"Wow" Ron stares at you uncomfortably for a few moments, then, as though he hadn't realized what he was doing until just now, he looks quickly out of the window again.

"Are all your family wizards?" you ask, finding Ron just as interesting as he seems to find you.

"Er... Yes, I think so. I think Mum's got a second cousin whose an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"So you must know loads of magic already." The Weasleys are clearly one of those old wizarding families that the pale boy in Diagon Alley talked about.

"I heard you went to live with muggles. What are they like?"

"I don't know, normal I guess. I don't really know what wizards are like. I wish I had three wizarding brothers, then this wouldn't be so, well, strange."

"Five." For some reason he looks gloomy about this. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left. Bill was head boy, and Charlie was captain of the Quidditch team. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks, and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat." Ron reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a fat gray rat, which is asleep.

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless; he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff, I mean, I got Scabbers instead." Ron's ears go pink. He seems to think he's said too much, because he goes back to staring out of the window.

You don't really see a problem with not being able to afford an owl. After all, your family couldn't afford to send you to Smeltings, and you never really had any money until a month ago. You tell Ron about this, and it seems to cheer him up a bit.

"Besides, you seem like the normal one in your family so far. Really being normal is better then being exceptional. I wish I didn't have that whole boy-who-lived thing. It's just like you with your brothers, really. Everyone expects me to be something great because of something that I can't even remember doing, and really I'm not anything special, just a normal kid. And even if I did do 'great things' like they all seem to think I'm destined to, it won't matter, because they expected me to anyway, but if I don't, they'll all be disappointed in me. No winning really, and until Hagrid broke down the door to the shack, I didn't even know anything about being a wizard, or my parents, or Voldemort." Ron interupts your rant with a gasp.

"What?"

"You said You-Know-Who's name!" says Ron sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people..."

"I'm not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name; I just never knew you shouldn't. See what I mean. I've got loads to learn... I bet." You voice something that has been worrying you for a while. "I bet I'm the worst in the class."

"You won't be. There's loads of people who come from muggle families and they learn quick enough."

While you were talking, the train has left London. Now you speed past fields full of cows and sheep. You are quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past. Around half past noon, there is a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled women slides back your door and asks, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

You didn't eat breakfast this morning, so you leap to your feet, but Ron's ears go pink again, and he mutters that he's brought sandwitches. You go out into the corridor.

You were never allowed much candy, and now that you have pockets rattling with gold and silver, you are ready to buy as many Mars Bars as you can carry. The woman doesn't have Mars Bars. What she does have are Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumokin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things you have never seen in your life before. You quickly decide that candy trumps weirdness, and, not wanting to miss anything, you get some of everything, and pay the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron stares as you bring it all back into the compartment and tip it onto an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving." You take a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty to emphasize your point.

Ron has taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. Four sandwiches rest inside. He pulls one of them apart and complains, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"Swap you for one of these." You hold up a pasty. "Go on-"

"You don't want this, it's all dry. She hasn't got much time, you know, with five of us," Ron interrupts you.

"Go on, have a pasty," you finish. It is a nice feeling sitting there with Ron eating your way through all your pasties, cakes, and candies. You conveniently forget about the sandwiches.

"What are these?" you ask Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?"

"No, but see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."

"What?"

"Oh, of course you wouldn't know. Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside them, you know, to collect - famous witches and wizards. I've got about five hundred, but haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

You unwrap your Chocolate Frog and pick up the card. A man's face looks up at you from the card. Half-moon spectacles rest upon a long crooked nose, and long silver hair flows from his head and face. Underneath the picture rests his name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore!"

"Don't tell me you've never heard of Dumbledore!" says Ron. "Can I have a frog. I might get Agrippa, thanks."

You turn over your card and read:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS.

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and ten-pin bowling.

You turn your card back over, and see, to your astonishment, that Dumbledore's face has disappeared.

"He's gone!"

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," says Ron. "He'll be back. No! I've got Morgana again. I've got about six of her... Do you want it? You can start collecting."

Ron's eyes stray to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.

Help yourself. You know, in the normal world, people just stay put in photos."

"Do they? They don't move at all?" Ron sounds amazed. "Weird!"

Well, he seems to have a strange idea about what's weird, but then again, he grew up with magic, so he's bound to have some - unusual - ideas.

You stare as Dumbledore slides back into the picture on his card and gives you a smile. Ron is more interested in eating chocolate than looking at famous witches and wizards, but you can't keep your eye's off the cards. Now you have not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but also Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grinnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin.

You finally tear your eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who is scraching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

"You want to be careful with those. When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor. You know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once." Ron picks up a green bean, looks at it carefully, and bites into a corner. "Bleaaargh, see. Sprouts."

You have a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. You get toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and nibble off the end of a funny gray one, which turns out to be pepper.

The country side now flying past the window is becoming wilder. The neat fields are gone. Now there are woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There is a knock on the door of your compartment and the round-faced boy that you passed on the platform earlier comes in. He looks tearful.

"Sorry, but have you seen a toad at all?" When you shake your heads, he wails, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"He'll turn up," you tell him.

"Yes. Well if you see him..." He leaves.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," says Ron. "If I'd brought a toad, I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk." The rat snoozes on, on Ron's lap.

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference. I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..." He rummages around in his trunk and pulls out a very battered-looking wand. It is chipped in places and something white glints at the end. "Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway..." He is just raising his wand when the compartment door slides open again.

The toadless boy is back, and this time he's not alone. A girl has positioned herself in front of him. Her new Hogwarts robes already adorn her figure, and thick bushy hair sprouts from her head.

"Has anyone seen a toad," she demands. "Neville's lost one."

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," answers Ron, but she isn't listening. She is looking at the wand instead.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sits down, without waiting for an invitation. Ron looks taken aback.

"Er, all right. Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow." He waves his wand, but nothing happens. Scabbers stays gray and fast asleep.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my families's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard. I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

You look at Ron, wondering if she will let you answer her latest question, or if she just stopped to breath. It seems from the look on his face that he hasn't learned all his course books by heart either.

"I'm Ron Weasley."

"Harry Potter."

"Are you really? I know all about you, of course. I got a few extra books, for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Am I?"

"Goodness, didn't you know? I'd have found out everything I could if it was me. Do either of you know what house you'll be in?"

"No, but I know you'll be in Ravenclaw. 'Fer smart people who study all the time'" You but in, unable to help yourself.

"Well, I don't think that would be that bad, but I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor; it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it... Anyway we'd better go look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon. Come on Neville, let's go find your toad." With that, she leaves taking the poor toadless boy with her.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it." Ron throws his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell, George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"What house are your brothers in?"

"Gryffindor. Mum and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

"That's the house You-Know-Who was in?"

"Yeah." Ron flops back into his seat, looking depressed.

"You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit lighter," you lie, trying to make Ron feel better. "So, what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left school?" You want to distract Ron, but you also wonder what choices you'll have. Somehow you don't think magic qualifies you for business like you had planned.

"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts." Looks like you still might have a chance in banking. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the muggles. Someone tried to rob a high security vault."

You stare. "Really? What happened to them?"

"Nothing. That's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get 'round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's so odd. Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it" You turn this news over in your mind. You are starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who is mentioned. You suppose it is all part of what's normal in the magical world, but it is a lot more comfortable saying 'Voldemort' without worrying.

"What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asks in a sudden subject change.

"Er, I don't know any."

"What!" Ron looks dumbfounded. "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world." And he's off; explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he's been to with his brothers and the broomsticks he'd like to get if he had the money. He is just taking you through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slides open yet again, but this time it isn't the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger.

Three boys enter, and you recognize the middle one at once; he is the pale boy form Madam Malkin's robe shop. He looks at you with a lot more interest than he'd had back in Diagon Alley.

"Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So you are that Potter, are you?"

"Yes." You look at the other boys. Both of them are thickset and look extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they look like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle. My name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." Ron gives a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snicker. Malfoy, Draco Malfoy looks at him.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. May father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford." He turns back to you. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." He holds out his hand to shake yours, but you just look at it indifferently.

"No."

Malfoy, Draco Malfoy doesn't go red, but a pink tinge does appear in his pale cheeks.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter. Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you." Ron suddenly stands up, as if he is ready to fight. You stay sitting, because you have no intention of fighting those two bodygaurds.

"Say that again!" says Ron, his face as red as his hair.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneers.

"No." You say, hoping he will leave, and that you won't have to break your one-word Malfoy rule. He's really not worth a two word reply.

"Shame, for you. You see, we have eaten all our food, and you still seem to have some."

"Out." You say while handing him a Chocolate Frog.

Malfoy smirks. "Oh, but we don't feel like leaving yet, and you still have some food there." Before you can make another peace ofering, Goyle reaches towards the rest of the Chocolate Frogs, and Ron leaps forward, but before he so much as touches Goyle, Goyle lets out a horrible yell.

Scabbers the rat hangs from his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle's knuckle. Crabbe and Malfoy back away as Goyle swings Scabbers round and round, howling. When Scabbers finally flies off and hits the window, all three of them disappear at once. Perhaps they think that there might be more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they'd heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger comes in.

"What has been going on?" She looks at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.

"I think he's been knocked out," Ron says to you. He looks closer at Scabbers. "No, I don't believe it, he's gone back to sleep. You've met Malfoy before?"

You explain about your meeting in Diagon Ally.

"I've heard of his family. They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He turns to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"

"You'd better hurry up and put your school robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

"Scabbers has been fighting, not us." Ron scowls at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"

"All right. I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors. You've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Ron glares at her as she leaves. You peer out of the window. It is getting dark. You can see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train does seem to be slowing down.

You and Ron take off your jackets and pull on your long black robes. Ron's are a bit short for him, you can see he sneakers underneath them.

A voice echoes through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

Your stomach lurches with nerves, and Ron looks pale under his freckles. You cram your pockets with the last of the sweets and join the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slows right down and finally stops. People push their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. You shiver in the cold night air. Now, a lamp comes bobbing over the heads of the students, and you hear a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?" Hagrid's big hairy face beams over the sea of heads.

"C'mon, follow me. Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!" Slipping and stumbling, you follow Hagrid down what seems to be a steep, narrow path. It is so dark on either side of you, that you think there must be thick trees there. Nobody speaks much. Neville, the boy who lost his toad, sniffs once or twice.

"Yeh all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid calls over his shoulder, "just round this bed here." There is a loud "Ooooooh!" The narrow path has opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake.

Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, is a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid calls, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. You and Ron are followed into your boat by Neville and Hermione. "Everyone in," shouts Hagrid, who has a boat to himself. "Right then. FORWARD!"

The fleet of little boats moves off all at once, gliding across the lake, which is as smooth as glass. Everyone silently stares up at the great castle overhead. It towers over you as you sail nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stands.

"Heads down!" Hagrid yells as the first boats reach the cliff; you all bend your heads and the little boats carry you through a curtain of ivy that hides a wide opening in the cliff face. You are carried along a dark tunnel, which seems to be taking you right underneath the castle, until you reach a kind of underground harbor, where you clamber out onto the rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" Hagrid asks Neville, as he checks the boats while people climb out of them.

"Trevor!" cries Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then you clamber up a passageway in the roch after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. You walk up a flight of stone steps and crowd around the huge, Oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" Hagrid raises a gigantic fist and knocks thre times on the castle door.


	6. The Sorting Hat

Disclaimer: Having dug my hole, I began to pore the cement foundation. I laid it on thick. You do not belong to me, you belong to J. K. Rowling. She is am amazingly awesome writer, and as much as I would love it if I owned an awesome character like you, you are much better off with her owning you.

Chapter Six

The Sorting Hat

The door swings open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stands there. She has a stern face, and your first thought is that this is not someone to get on the wrong side of.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," says Hagrid.

""Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." She pulls the door wide. The entrance hall is so big, that you could have fit your entire house in it. The stone walls are lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling is too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing you leads to the upper floors.

You follow Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. You can hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, the rest of the school must already be here, but Professor McGonagall shows you into a small, empty chamber off the hall. You crowd in, standing rather closer together than you usually would, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," says Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitories, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Her eye's linger for a moment on Neville's cloak, which is fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. You nervously try to flatten your hair, and smooth any wrinkles from your robes.

"I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly." Professor McGonagall leaves the chamber.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" you ask Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Your heart rate increases. A test. In front of the whole school, but you don't know any magic yet. You didn't expect something like this the moment you arrived. Now you wish that you had studied your other books, besides just History of Magic.

You look around anxiously, and see that everyone else looks terrified too. No one talks much, except for Hermione Granger, who whispers very fast about all the spells she's learned, and wonders which ones she'll need. You try hard not to listen to her, but the stress of not knowing what is coming is getting to you. You've never been more nervous, not even when you were getting ready to cross the barrier onto the platform earlier today. You keep your eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall will come back and lead you to some unknown doom.

Then something happens that makes you jump about a foot in the air. Several people behind you scream.

"What the..." you gasp. So do the people around you. About twenty ghosts are streaming through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glide across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at you. They seem to be arguing.

What looks like a fat little monk says, "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance."

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves. He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost. I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights has suddenly noticed you.

Nobody answers.

"New students!" says the Friar, smiling around at you. "About to be Sorted, I suppose." A few people nod mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" says the Friar. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," says a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony is about to start." Professor McGonagall has returned. One by one, the ghosts float away through the opposite wall.

"Now form a line, and follow me." Feeling oddly as though your legs have turned to lead, you get into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind you, and you walk out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

You have never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. Thousands and thousands of candles float in midair over four long tables, lighting the Great Hall. The rest of the students sit at the tables, watching you.

Glittering golden plates and goblets line these tables. At the top of the hall, the teachers sit at another long table.

Professor McGonagall leads you up here, so that you come to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind you.

The hundreds of faces staring at you look like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shine misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, you look upward and see a velvety back ceiling dotted with stars. You hear Hermione whisper, "Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

It is hard to believe that there is a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall doesn't simply open to the heavens.

You quickly look down again as Professor McGonagall silently places a four-legged stool in front of you. On top of the stool, she puts a pointed wizard's hat. This hat is patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia would never let it in the house.

Maybe you will have to try and get a rabbit out of it, you think wildly, that seems like the sort of thing wizards would test you on. Noticing that everyone else in the hall is staring at he hat, you stare at it too. For a few seconds complete silence rules the hall, then the hat twitches. A rip near the brim opens wide like a mouth, and the hat begins to sing.

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on!

Don't be afraid!

And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a thinking Cap!"

The whole hall bursts into applause as the hat finishes its song. It bows to each of the four tables and then becomes quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat?" Ron whispers to you. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll." You smile weakly. Trying on a hat is certainly a lot better than having to do a spell, but you do wish you could try it on without everyone watching. The hat seems to be asking rather a lot; you don't feel brave, or quick-witted, or any of it at the moment. If only the hat mentioned a house for people who feel a bit queasy, that would be the one for you.

Professor McGonagall steps forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbott, Hannah!" A pink faced girl with blond pigtails stumbles out of line, puts on the hat, which falls right down over her eyes, and sits down.

A moment passes, then the hat shouts, "HUFFLEPUFF!"

The table on the right cheers and claps as Hannah goes to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. You see the ghost of the friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" Susan scuffles off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry"

"RAVENCLAW!" The table second from the left claps this time; several Ravenclaws stand up to shake hands with Terry as he joins them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" goes to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" becomes the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left explodes with cheers; you can see Ron's twin brothers catcalling.

"Bulstrode, Millicent" then becomes a Slytherin. Perhaps it is your imagination, after all you've heard about Slytherin, but you think they look like an unpleasant lot. You start to feel definitely sick now.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes, you notice, the hat shouts out the house at once, but other times it takes a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy haired boy next to you in the line, sits on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declares him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!" Hermione almost runs to the stool and jams the hat eagerly on her head.

"RAVENCLAW!" the hat shouts. Ron lets out a revealed sigh.

A horrible thought strikes you, as horrible thoughts always do when you're nervous. What if you aren't chosen at all. What if you just sit there with the hat over your eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerks it off your head and says there has obviously been a mistake and humiliates you in front of all these people? Clearly normal people get sorted into a house. What if you are such a freak, that the hat can't sort you, and everyone will know it?

When Neville Longbottom is called, he falls over on his way to the stool. The hat takes a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouts "GRYFFINDOR," Neville runs off still wearing it, and has to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag." Malfoy swaggers forward when his name is called and gets his wish at once: the hat barely touches his head when it screams, "SLYTHERIN!" Malfoy goes to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There aren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks" and then, at last, "Potter, Harry!" As you step forward, whispers suddenly break out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

The last thing you see before the hat drops over your eyes is the hall full of people craning to get a good look at you. Now you look at the black inside of the hat. You wait.

"Hmm," says a small voice in your ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. You have more courage than you think, I see. Not a bad mind either. There is intelligence, and a strong driving desire. You're not afraid of work either. You could do well in any of the houses, so, where shall I put you?

You wait in silence hoping the the hat will do it's job. "Hmm. Your parents were in Gryffindor, and you feel a strong loyalty to your family, although that does seem to point somewhere. You've already read your History of Magic book and started in on your potions book, that is very studious of you. Hmm, I think that might just be that you are a good worker though. You would do well in Slytherin, you know. You have great cunning, and a strong thirst to prove yourself, but wanting to prove yourself normal might not make you feel at home there. Slytherin would help you on the path to greatness, you know."

Your heart sinks. You might want to be normal, but everyone seems to expect you to be great. You might have to go to Slytherin to do your duty to these people who think so much of you.

"Ah, you would become great, though you don't want to, out of loyalty. I had so hoped to put you in Slytherin, but I guess it had better be HUFFLEPUFF!"

You hear the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. You take off the hat and walk shakily toward the Hufflepuff table. You are so relieved to have been placed for your character, and not your potential to do great things. Also, when it comes down to it, you are glad that you do not have to go to Slytherin, just for the sake of avoiding Slytherin. You sit down opposite the ghost of the Friar. He pats your arm, giving you the sudden, horrible feeling that you've just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

You can see the High Table properly now. At the end furthest from you, sits Hagrid, who catches your eye and gives you a thumbs up and a weak grin. You grin back, much more widely. There, in the center of the Hight Table, sits Albus Dumbledore. You recognize him at once from the card you got out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair is the only thing in the entire hall that shines as brightly as the ghosts. You spot Professor Querrill, too, the nervous young man from The Leaky Cauldron. He looks very peculiar in a large purple turban.

Now only four people remain to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a black boy even taller than Ron, is sent to the Gryffindor table.

"Turpin, Lisa," becomes a Ravenclaw and then it's Ron's turn.

He is pale by now. He puts the hat on his head, and a second later, it shouts "GRYFFINDOR!" You earn some strange looks from your new house-mates by clapping softly for him. You quickly stop.

After Ron is sorted, "Zabini, Blaise" is sent to Slytherin, and Professor McGonagall rolls up her scroll. The sorting being done with, she takes the hat away.

You look down at your empty gold plate. You have only just realized how hungry you are. The pumpkin pasties from the train seem like a distant memory.

Albus Dumbledore has gotten to his feet. He beams at the students, his arms open wide, as if nothing could please him more than to see you all here.

"Welcome. Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words." You listen closely, not wanting to miss anything such an important man has to say. "And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" He sits back down. Everybody else seems to be clapping and cheering, but you are just confused.

"Is he, a bit mad?" You ask a nearby boy with a badge like the one Percy was sporting, indicating that he is a prefect.

The older boy looks rather amused. "Mad? He's a genius. Best wizard in the world, of course he's mad. Have you ever heard of someone that brilliant who wasn't? Care for some Yorkshire pudding?"

Your mouth falls open. The dishes in front of you are now piled high with food. You have never seen so many things you like to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and for some strange reason, peppermint hambugs. You pile your plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and begin to eat.

It is all delicious.

The Fat Friar looks at you plate with a wishful expression on his face. "Ah, the pleasure of eating. 'Tis the one thing that I miss most from when I was alive."

You look at him. "Can't you eat?"

"No, not really. I don't need to, but I do miss it. When I was alive, I gave up all earthly pleasures except food, so that when I died I might go to Paradise. Now that I am dead, I can not even eat. I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I am Friar Timothy Tuck."

You are about to introduce yourself when one of the other first year boys pipes up, "I've heard of you, you're the Fat Friar."

Friar Tuck sighs. "Once I was regarded as a hero, and now eleven-year-olds make mock of me."

You hold out your hand to him. "I'm Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you Friar Tuck. Did you know Robin Hood?"

Frier Tuck chuckles. "Indeed I did, but those times were not nearly as exciting as they have been made out to be. You may call me the Fat Friar if you wish, everyone else does. I think it may be Hogwarts tradition for the house ghosts to have somewhat offensive nicknames. Consider the Bloody Baron." The Fat Friar nods to the Slytherin ghost. You look over at him and see a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He sits next to Malfoy who, you are pleased to see, doesn't look happy with his seating arrangements at all.

"How did he get covered in blood?" the other boy asks.

"I may be a dead hero, but I am not nearly brave enough to ask him that. That other ghost at Gryffindor is Nearly Headless Nick." You look over and see a ghost sitting next to Ron swing his head back onto his neck. It looks as though someone tried to behead him, and did a poor job of it. "I don't know how he almost lost his head, but I imagine it was by doing something stupidly brave in the pursuit of one noble goal or another. The lady over there is the Gray Lady. I guess she gets a nicer name, although she never could stand the color gray. She is Lady Ravenclaw's daughter.

When everyone has eaten as much as they can, the remains of the food fade from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean. A moment later, the desserts appear. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you can think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding... As you help yourself to some treacle tart, the talk turns to your families.

"Most of my family has been in Hufflepuff for over three hundered years, but I have a few distant cousins who ended up in Ravenclaw," the boy who was talking to the Fat Friar earlier announces. "Ernie McMillin, by the way."

Another boy across the way speaks up. "I didn't even know about magic until about two months ago, my whole family's muggles. I'm Justin Finch-Fletchley."

"I'm Harry Potter. I guess my parents were wizards, but they died when I was young, so I was raised by my muggle aunt and uncle. Didn't even know magic existed until a month ago."

Ernie grins at you. "We all know who you are."

"I don't," says Justin, "why did everyone start acting weird when you were sorted?"

"I guess I'm a bit famous here."

"A bit famous?" Ernie exclaims. "You're Harry Potter!"

You shrug, so Justin turns to Ernie for an explanation. "His parents were killed by You-Know-Who when we were all one. You-Know-Who tried to kill him too, but the curse backfired or something, and he died instead. Harry won the war."

Justin still looks confused. "I don't know who."

"His name's Voldemort. I guess he started a war before we were born, and they tell me that I killed him, but I don't actually remember any of it. I was just a baby." You supply.

"You-Know-Who was the most powerful dark lord, like, ever. Nobody could stand up to him, until Harry killed him."

Justin looks to you with a bit of awe appearing on his face. You really wish he wouldn't. "Look, I don't even remember it. He probably messed up and killed himself by mistake. How could a baby defeat someone like that?"

Justin nods in acceptance, but Ernie is not buying it. "Then how did you get your scar?"

"I don't know. Hagrid says nobody does, so maybe it came from him butchering the curse."

Ernie still looks skeptical, but you feel too sleepy to keep arguing, so you avoid further conversation by turning away from him and looking to the High Table.

Hagrid drinks deeply from his goblet while Professor McGonagall talks to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, talks to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happens very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looks past Quirrel's turban straight into your eyes, and a sharp, hot pain shoots across the scar on your forehead.

"Ouch!" You clap a hand to your head.

"What is it?" Justin asks.

"N-nothing." The pain has gone as quickly as it came. Harder to shake off is the feeling you get from the teacher's look, a feeling that he doesn't like you.

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" you ask the Fat Friar.

"Ah, the new defense Professor is Quirrell. No wonder he looks so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but gossip among the ghosts is that he doesn't want to. They say he's after Professor Quirrell's job. Still, it doesn't bode well for Professor Quirrell as defense professor if he gets that nervous just talking to Professor Snape." You watch Professor Snape for a while, but he doesn't look at you again.

At last, the desserts too disappear, and Professor Dumbledore gets to his feet once more. The hall falls silent.

"Ahern, just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils, and a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Professor Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flash in the direction of the Weasley twins.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch."

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." A few people laugh, but you notice that most people seem to be taking that last remark seriously.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cries Dumbledore. The other professors' smiles have become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gives his wand a little flick, as if he is trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flies out of it, which rises high above the tables and twists itself, snakelike, into words.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune, and off we go!" says Dumbledore.

The school bellows:

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts,

Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,

Weather we be old and bald

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling

With some interesting stuff,

For now they're bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we forgot, just do your best, we'll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot."

Everybody finishes the song at different times. You pick a fast paced tune, and rush through the embarrassing song as quickly as you can. The last people to finish are the Weasley twins who are left singing a slow funeral march by themselves. They don't seem to mind.

Dumbledore conducts their last few lines with his wand and when they are finished, he is the one that claps the loudest.

"Ah, music." He wipes his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

You follow a prefect through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and down a side passage. He leads you down a short flight of stairs and down a longer corridor that dead-ends in front of a picture of a badger.

"This is the entrence to the Hufflepuff common room. To get in, you have to scratch the badger behind the ears like this." The prefect demonstrates his instructions, and the wall slides back, and then to the side. You all scramble through the new passageway and find yourselves in the Hufflepuff common room, a cozy square room full of squashy armchairs.

The prefect directs the girls through one door to their dormitory, and you through another. At the end of a long hall, you find a door marked 'first years'. Through the door, a room with two rows of four-poster beds hang with golden yellow, velvet curtains. Your trunks have already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, you put on your pajamas, and fall into bed.

You think to ask your roommates if they tried the treacle tart, but you fall asleep before you can follow up on the thought.

Perhaps you ate a bit too much, because you have a very strange dream. You wear Professor Quirrell's turban, which keeps talking to you, telling you that you must transfer to Slytherin at once, because people will expect you to do great things. You tell the turban that you don't want to be in Slytherin and that you just want to be normal; it gets heavier and heavier, you try to pull it off, but it tightens painfully. Malfoy appears, laughing at you as you struggle with it. Then Malfoy turns into the hook-nosed Professor Snape, whose laugh becomes high and cold; there is a burst of green light, and you wake, sweating and shaking.

You roll over and fall asleep again. When you wake in the morning, you don't remember dreaming at all.


	7. The Potions Master

Disclaimer: I then sunk the main posts into the foundation before the cement dried. The first five chapters where copied, almost word for word from the work of J. K. Rowling, true owner of your world and all in it, even those few and modest things that I came up with.

AN: I'm surprised that nobody had anything to say about Harry being sorted into Hufflepuff. Was it that predictable?

Chapter Seven

The Potions Master

"There, look!"

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

Whispers follow you from the moment you leave your dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stand on tip-toe to get a look at you, or double back to pass you in the corridors again, staring. You wish they wouldn't, because they make you feel like you are part of some sort of freak show, and make it harder for you to find your way to classes.

There are a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that lead somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you have to remember to jump. Then there are doors that won't open unless you ask politely, or tickle them in exactly the right place, and doors that aren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It is very hard to remember where anything is, because it all seems to move around a lot. The people in the portraits keep going to visit each other, and you are sure that the coats of armor can walk, but only when nobody is looking.

The ghosts don't help either. It is always a nasty shock when one of them glides suddenly through a door you are trying to open. The Fat Friar is always happy to point new Hufflepuffs in the right direction, but Peeves, the poltergeist, is worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you meet him when you are late for class. He drops wastepaper baskets on your head, pulls rugs from under your feet, pelts you with bits of chalk, or sneaks up behind you, invisible, and grabs your nose and screeches, "GOT YOUR CONK!" Even worse than Peeves, if that is possible, is the caretaker, Argus Filch.

You and Ron manage to get on the wrong side of him when you are exploring the castle on your very first afternoon, after classes are over for the day. Filch finds you trying to force your way through a door that unluckily turns out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He doesn't believe that you are lost, and is sure that you were trying to break into it on purpose. He is threatening to lock you in the dungeons when you are rescued by Professor Quirrel, who is passing by, luckily enough.

Filch owns a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrols the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, even by mistake, and she'll whisk off for Filch, who'll appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knows the secret passageways of the school better than anyone, except maybe Ron's twin brothers, and can pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. Your fellow students all hate him, and it is the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

Once you manage to find them, there are the classes themselves. There is a lot more to magic, as you quickly find out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

You have to study the night sky through your telescopes every Tuesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week you go out to the greenhouses behind the castle with Ron and the Gryffindors to study Herbology, with your head of house, a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where you learn how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and find out what they are used for.

Easily the most boring class is History of Magic, which is the only one taught by a ghost. History used to always be your favorite class, but Professor Binns ruins it for you. He was very old indeed when he fell asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Professor Binns drones on and on while you scribble down names and dates, and get Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. After all, what is the difference between an evil person and an oddball when it comes down to it?

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, is a tiny little wizard who has to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class, he takes roll call, and when he reaches your name he gives an excited squeak and topples out of sight.

Professor McGonagall is again different. You were quite right to think she isn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gives you a talking-to the moment you sit down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she says. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changes her desk into a pig and back again. You are all very impressed, and can't wait to get started, but soon realize you aren't going to be changing furniture into animals for a long time.

After taking a lot of complicated notes, you are each given a match and start trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, no one has made any difference to their match.

The class everyone really looked forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turn out to be a bit of a disappointment. His classroom smells strongly of garlic, which everyone says is to ward off a vampire he met in Romania and is afraid will be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he tells you, was given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but you aren't sure you believe this story.

For one thing, Ron says that when Seamus Finnigan, a Gryffindor, asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell fought off the zombie, Quirrel went pink and started talking about the weather. For another, you notice a funny smell hangs around the turban. Ron's twin brothers insist that it is stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell is protected wherever he goes.

Thursday morning you have your first potions lesson. You have been dreading the double lesson with the Ravenclaws ever since you learned that Professor Snape, who glared at you at the welcome banquet, would be teaching the class, and monopolizing an entire morning to do so.

Potions lessons take place down in one of the dungeons. It is colder here than up in the main castle, and would be quite creepy, even without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Professor Snape, like Professor Flitwick, starts the class by taking roll call, and like Professor Flitwick, he pauses at your name.

"Ah, yes," he says softly, "Harry Potter. Our new celebrity." Snape finishes calling the names and looks up at the class. His eyes are black like Hagrid's, but they held none of Hagrid's warmth.

They are dark and empty and make you think of dark tunnels. They are the eyes of a man totally without compassion or hesitation. Professor Snape is scary.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death." He speaks in barely more than a whisper, but you catch every word. Professor Snape manages to keep the classroom silent except for the faint noise of his words, without any effort. Suddenly his speech speeds up, and the volume of his voice rises, ever so slightly. "If you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Total silence follows this little speech. You sit on the edge of your seat, waiting to learn what this man, this very scary man, who seems to hate you, has to teach you about this subtle science and exact art. Hermione Granger also sits on the edge of her seat looking desperate to start proving that she isn't a dunderhead.

"Potter!" Snape barks suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Oh. Hermione's hand shoots into the air, but you can't remember. You are sure you read something about this, but the answer dances on the edge of your memory.

"I don't know, sir."

Professor Snape's lips curl into a sneer. "Tut, tut. Fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretches her hand as high into the air as it will go without her leaving her seat, but the professor asked you this question, and this time you remember the answer. It was mentioned at the end of the first chapter in the textbook, and you thought it was disgusting.

"In the stomach of a goat, sir."

Professor Snape nods. "Not bad Potter, it seems that you _do_ know how to read. Let's go for two out of three, shall we. For one point, what is the eighth use of dragon's blood?"

Hermione stands up, her hand stretched toward the dungeon ceiling, but you are ashamed to admit that you don't know. The only thing that you can remember about the uses of dragon's blood comes from Professor Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card.

"Sorry, sir. I don't know."

Professor Snape is clearly not pleased. "One point from Hufflepuff, and a point from Ravenclaw as well. Sit down, Ms. Granger. For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar, like you said is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat, what you did not say, but is still important, is that it will save you from most poisons. As for the eighth use of dragon's blood, it is a universal cauldron cleaner. Some potions ingredients should never be mixed. Cleaning a cauldron with dragon's blood after use is the most effective, and only foolproof, way of ensuring that residue from past brews will not contaminate your current brew, with potentially fatal results. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There is a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment.

Things don't improve from there. Professor Snape puts you all into pairs and sets you to the task of mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. You are partnered with the overeager Ravenclaw girl. Professor Snape sweeps around in his long black cloak, watching you weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing everyone.

As you climb the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, your mind races, and your spirits are low. You lost a point for Hufflepuff in your very first week. Would your new house still want you now that you have detracted from their, your, total points? After classes are over for the day, you express your worries to Ron.

"Cheer up, Snape's always taking points off Fred and George, and everyone still thinks their brilliant."

Friday is an important day for you, Ernie, and Justin. You make your way to the Great Hall, without getting lost. It shouldn't be such an accomplishment, as your common room is the closest to the Great Hall, but with the way the castle refuses to stay the same from day to day, you take pride in your minor achievement.

"What do we have today?" you ask Ernie as he pours milk in his breakfast cereal.

"Charms and History of Magic in the morning."

Just then, the mail arrives. You have gotten used to this by now, but it had given you a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig hasn't brought you anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble on your ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other owls. Today, however, she flutters down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and drops a note onto your plate. You tear it open at once. It says, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Harry,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?

I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.

Hagrid

You borrow Justin's quill, scribble Yes, please, see you later. Is it alright if I bring a friend along? On the back of the note, and send Hedwig off again.

At five to three, you and Ron leave the castle and make your way across the grounds. Hagrid lives in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes rest outside the front door.

When you knock, you hear a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rings out, saying, "Back, Fang." Hagrid's big, hairy face appears in the crack as he pulls the door open.

"Hang on," he says. "Back, Fang." He lets you in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

The hut contains only one room. Hams and pheasants hang from the ceiling, a copper kettle boils on the open fire, and in the corner, stands a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yerselves at home." Hagrid lets go of Fang, who bounds, straight at Ron and starts licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang is clearly not as fierce as he looks.

"This is Ron," you tell Hagrid, who is pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

"Another Weasly, eh?" Hagrid says as he glances at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasing yer twin brothers away from the forest." The rock cakes are shapeless lumps with raisins that almost break your teeth, but you and Ron pretend to be enjoying them as you tell Hagrid all about your first lessons. Fang rests his head on your knee and drools all over your robes.

You and Ron are delighted to hear Hagrid call Filtch "that old git." "And as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her ter Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere. Can't get rid of her; Filch puts her up ter it." You tell Hagrid about Professor Snape's lesson. Hagrid, like Ron, tells you not to worry about it, that Professor Snape likes hardly any of the students.

"But he seems to really hate me."

"Rubbish! Why should he?" You can't help but notice that Hagrid doesn't quite meet your eyes when he says that.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asks Ron. "I liked him a lot, great with animals." You wonder if Hagrid changed the subject on purpose. While Ron tells Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, you pick up a piece of paper that lies on the table under the tea cozy. It is a cutout from the Daily Prophet:

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched, had in fact, been emptied the same day.

"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

You remember Ron telling you on the train that someone tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn't mention the date.

"Hagrid! That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!" There is no doubt this time. Hagrid's eyes definitely don't meet yours. He grunts and offers you another rock cake. You read the story again. The vault that was searched, was in fact, emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Was that what the thieves were looking for?

As you and Ron walk back to the castle for dinner, your pockets weighed down with rock cakes you were too polite to refuse. You think that none of the lessons you've had so far has given you as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Did Hagrid collect that package just in time? Where is it now? Does Hagrid know something about Professor Snape that he doesn't want to tell you?


	8. The Midnight Duel

Disclaimer: I set the stones of the structure one at a time, each with a word of praise to J K Rowling, rightful owner of your world and all in it. J K Rowling created you. J K Rowling created all that you know and all that you will ever know. Even where you and your story deviate from the work of the mighty Rowling, she owns all.

Chapter Eight

The Midnight Duel

You never believed that you could meet someone that you would truly hate. That was before you met Draco Malfoy. You can at least take comfort from the fact that first year Hufflepuffs only have charms with the Slytherins, but you feel rather sorry for Ron. You thought that he, like you, would only have to put up with the blond menace for one class, but that was before flying lessons were announced.

Your flying lessons will be on Wednesday with the Ravenclaws, but Ron will have to put up with Malfoy and the rest of Slytherin for his flying lessons the next day. You are glad that you will not have to make a fool of yourself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy, despite Ron's misfortune. You have been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.

"I don't think that you'll make a fool of yourself," Ron tells you reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."

Malfoy certainly does talk about flying a lot. You have heard him complaining loudly that first years never get on the house Quidditch teams and telling loud boastful stories that always seem to end with him narrowly escaping muggles in helicopters. He isn't the only one though. The way he tells it, Ernie McMillan was practically born on a broomstick. Even Ron tells everyone who will listen about the time he almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom.

Everyone from wizarding families talks about Quidditch constantly. Ron had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shares his dormitory, about football. Ron can't see what is exciting about a game with only one ball where no one is allowed to fly. You try to explain to him that muggles don't fly on brooms, but he seems to think that they should be playing on their hang gliders.

Neville has never been on a broomstick in his life because his grandmother never let him near one. Privately, you feel that she has good reason, because Neville manages to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground. You heard from Ron that he managed to blow up his cauldron during their first potions lesson. You didn't even realize that was possible with such a simple potion.

Hermione Granger, the bossy Ravenclaw girl, is almost as nervous about flying as Neville is. This is something she can't learn by heart out of a book, not that she hasn't tried. When you drag Ron to the library on Tuesday, she bores you both with stupid flying tips she got from a library book called _Quidditch Through the Ages_. Neville joins you and hangs on to her every word. You and Ron happily interrupt her by packing up your stuff and moving to a different table.

At three-thirty the next afternoon, you hurry down the front steps with Justin and Ernie to your first flying lesson. The sun warms your faces, even as the cool September breeze lazily ripples the grass under your feet. When you arrive at the flat lawn of your flying lesson, you can see the trees of the forbidden forest swaying darkly in the distance.

The Ravenclaws are already there, and so are twenty broomsticks lying in nice neat lines on the ground. You have heard that Ron's twin brothers have complained about the school brooms. Ron says his brothers say that the brooms start to vibrate if you fly too high, and that some of them always fly slightly to the left.

The professor, Madam Hooch, arrives. Short gray hair sprouts from her head, and her yellow eyes peer out, like those of a hawk.

"Well, what are you all waiting for." She barks. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." You are already by a broomstick, so you glance down at it. It looks almost antique, but the coolness of this is ruined by twigs sticking out at odd angles.

"Stick your right hand over your broom, and say 'Up!'" calls Madam Hooch from the front.

Everyone shouts, "Up!"

Your broom jumps into your hand at once, but it is one of the few that does. Hermione Granger's simply rolls over on the ground, and Justin's doesn't move at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, can tell when you are afraid. There is a quiver in Justin's voice that says only too clearly that he wants to keep both his feet firmly on the ground.

Madam Hooch shows you how to mount your brooms without sliding off the end before walking up and down the rows correcting other people's grips. You swell with pleasure when she informs you that yours is perfect.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," says Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle. Three. Two. One." She blows her whistle and the class takes to the air.

Flying is like nothing you have ever felt before. Everything Madam Hooch said flies from your mind, and instinct takes over. You hover a few feet from the ground for a minute, and then effortlessly return to the ground. You are one of the few who are so lucky. Madam Hooch nods her approval at you and walks up and down the rows talking nervous muggleborns and embarrassed purebloods alike back to the ground.

You return to the air out of boredom, and spend the next hour or so drifting lazily up and down while the rest of the class shoots you jealous glares and struggles to land their brooms. By the end of the lesson Ernie and Padma Patil, a Ravenclaw girl, have joined you in your easy drifting, earning six points for Hufflepuff, and three for Ravenclaw, while the rest of the class scowls in frustration.

You are still walking on air from the amazing feeling of flying the next day at breakfast when the mail comes. You haven't had a single letter since Hagrid's note, something Malfoy has been quick to notice. Malfoy's eagle owl is always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opens gloatingly at the Slytherin table.

A barn owl brings Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opens it excitedly and shows the hall a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seems to be full of smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explains. "Gran knows I forget things..." You can't hear anything beyond this, because his voice, back to normal talking level, is swallowed by the normal chatter of breakfast. His face falls when the Remembrall glows scarlet. He is deep in thought when Malfoy, who is passing the Gryffindor table, snatches the Remembrall out of his hand.

Ron leaps to his feet, looking for a reason to fight, but Professor McGonagall, who can spot trouble quicker than any other teacher in the school, is there in a flash.

Malfoy scowls and quickly drops the Remembrall back on the table. He slopes away with Crabbe and Goyle close behind him.

That evening in the library you don't actually get any studying done because Ron's flying lesson was evidently much more exciting than yours.

"So then Hooch takes Neville to the hospital wing and warns us all that anyone who flies while she is gone is going to be in trouble. She wasn't even gone two minutes when the git walks up to where Neville fell and you won't believe what he did. Remember that ball thing Neville got at breakfast today?"

You nod, and he continues his whispered tale. "Well he nicks it and then starts bragging about it to the whole class. Well, of course I told him to hand it over, so the git takes to the air, and you know all those stories he's been telling about how well he flies? He can barley stay balanced on his broom, so naturally I get up and follow him."

You don't see anything natural about this decision, not after such a warning from a professor, but you nod and he continues. "Anyway, he starts flying a bit better after that, so I chase him down. He turns tail, like the coward that he is, and I shoot after him. I was just about to catch him, when Hooch comes back and yells at both of us. Can you believe it? I was just trying to get Neville his thing back, and she yelled at both of us. Said I should have stayed on the ground and told a teacher, like I would have done something like that."

You can believe it, but you just nod. "At least she acknowledged that I was in the right. Malfoy lost twenty points and got detention. I just lost ten points. He's going to be servicing the school brooms this Saturday. I bet she keeps him there all day." Ron finishes triumphantly with a huge grin on his face. Personally, you wouldn't be smiling if you had just lost Hufflepuff ten points, but to each their own.

"Getting help from Potter for your real classes, Weasley?" Malfoy approaches your table, flanked on both sides by Crabbe and Goyle.

"You're a lot braver now that you're on the ground and you've got your little friends with you," you say coolly. There is nothing little at all about Crabbe and Goyle, but as Madam Pince is looking on from her desk, there is nothing they can do except crack their knuckles and scowl.

"I'd take Weasley on anytime on my own. Tonight, if he wants. Wizard's duel. Wands only, no contact. What's the matter? Scared that your wand is just a cheap useless stick?"

"Of course I'm not. Harry's my second. Who's yours?" Ron replies before you can think of a clever way to get him out of the stupid idea.

"Crabbe. Midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; that's always unlocked."

You and Ron look at each other after Malfoy is gone. "What is a wizard's duel?" you ask, "and what do you mean, I'm your second?"

"Well, a second is there to take over if you die." He catches the look on your face. "But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most Malfoy and I will be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of us know enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected me to refuse, anyway."

"Excuse me." You both look up. Hermione Granger looms over you.

"Can't a person study in peace in this place?" he asks her, even though he is clearly not studying. He doesn't even have his book open.

She ignores his comment. "I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying..."

"Bet you could," Ron mutters

"and you mustn't go wandering around the school at night. Think of the trouble you'll be in if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really selfish of you."

"And it's really none of your business." you reply.

"Good-bye," says Ron.

All the same, it isn't what you would call a perfect end to the day, you think as you lie awake listening to Ernie and Justin falling asleep. Privately, you agree with the Ravenclaw witch. There is a very good chance you are going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and you would really rather not be breaking school rules. On the other hand, you know that the right thing to do is to stand by your friends, and you think that Ron may have become your first real friend. Honor demands that you go with him to be his second, and avenge him if Malfoy kills him. Also, Malfoy's sneering face keeps looming up out of the darkness. This is your chance to see someone wipe the smirk off of his face.

At half-past eleven you sneak out of bed, don your robes, pick up your wand, and creep out of your dorm, down the hall, and into the Hufflepuff common room. A few embers still glow in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows, and making your heart race. You slide out of your common room and into the hushed Hogwarts hallways.

As you make your way to the entrance hall, you are thankful that you elected against shoes, and that stone floors don't creek. You meet Ron, as agreed and start off towards the trophy room when a voice sounds and almost causes you to have a heart attack.

"I can't believe you're going to do this." The clouds part and the light off the moon illuminates Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown. You breath a sigh of relief.

"You!" The fury carries through in Ron's voice. "Go back to bed!"

"I almost told your brother," Hermione snaps, "Percy. He's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this." You can't believe that anyone can be so interfering.

"Come on," Ron says to you. He starts off again, and you follow him up the stairs.

"Don't you care about the points you'll lose for your houses? Do you only care about yourselves? I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll put two of the houses out of the running."

"Go away."

"No. I'm going to talk you out of this foolishness. Harry, talk some sense into your friend. You seem like you respect the rules. Ah, you two are so thick!"

"This is about more important rules. Loyalty to friends, and honor."

"Honor? The honorable thing to do is to always follow the rules!"

"Shut up, both of you, do you want us to get caught?"

You silence yourself for a moment as you and Hermione follow Ron. "Wait, I heard something." It sounds sort of like snuffling.

"Mrs. Norris?" Ron breaths, squinting through the dark.

It isn't Mrs. Norris. It is Neville. He is curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerks suddenly awake as you creep nearer.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the password to get into bed."

"Password?" you wonder aloud.

"Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere. She wasn't there when I snuck out."

"Probably because students aren't supposed to be out after hours. This is your chance to go back to your dorm, so we can all call it a night and be done with this foolishness."

"Shut up, Hermione. You can go back now, if you want. How's your arm Neville? Ron told me what happened."

"Fine." Neville shows you his arm. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"Good. Well, look Neville, we've got somewhere else to be, so we'll see you later."

"Don't leave me!" Neville scrambles to his feet. "I don't want to stay here alone. The Bloody Baron's been past twice already."

Ron looks at his watch. "If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and use it on you."

Hermione opens her mouth, perhaps to tell him exactly how to use the Curse of the Bogies, but you hiss at her to be quiet and Ron beckons you forward again.

You flit along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn you expect to run into Mr. Filch or Mrs. Norris, but you are lucky. You speed up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoe toward the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe aren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmer where the moonlight catches them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues wink silver and gold in the darkness. You edge along the walls, keeping your eyes on the doors at either end of the room. You nudge Ron, and he takes out his wand in case Malfoy leaps in and starts at once. The minutes creep by, and Hermione starts up a whispered argument about why you should just leave again. You wish that you could agree with her, but normal people stick by their friends during tough times, so you will too. Besides, you're a Hufflepuff; you're supposed to be loyal.

"He's late, maybe he chickened out," Ron whispers.

A noise in the next room makes you jump. You only just raise your wand in time to hear someone speak, and it isn't Malfoy.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." Filch addresses his cat. Horror-struck, you wave at the others to follow you as quickly as possible; they scurry silently behind you toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes barely whip round the corner before you hear Filch enter the trophy room.

"They're in here somewhere," the caretaker mutters, "probably hiding."

"This way!" you mouth at the others. Petrified, you begin to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. You can hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly lets out a frightened squeak and breaks into a run. He trips, grabs Ron around the waist, and the pair of them topple right into a suit of armor.

The clanging and crashing are enough to wake the whole castle.

"Run!" you yell, and the four of you sprint down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch is following. You swing around the doorpost and gallop down one corridor, then another. You lead the way, uncomfortably aware that you have no idea where you are going. You rip through a tapestry, find yourselves in a hidden passageway, hurtle along it, and come out near your Charms classroom, which you know is quite some distance from the trophy room.

"I think we've lost him," you pant, leaning against the cold wall and wiping your forehead. Neville is bent over, wheezing and spluttering.

"I told you," Hermione gasps, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I told you."

"We've all got to get back to our own dorms," says Ron, "quickly as possible. We should split up."

"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione gloats. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you; Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."

You nod at her. She is probably right; you will have to get back at him for this. "Alright, let's go."

It isn't that simple. You haven't gone more than a few steps when a doorknob rattles and something comes shooting out of a classroom in front of you.

You almost have a heart attack, again, but it is only Peeves. He notices you, and gives a squeal of delight.

"Shut up, Peeves, please, you'll get us thrown out." Peeves cackles.

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties. Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caught.

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."

"Should tell Filch, I should," says Peeves in a saintly voice, his eyes glittering wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

Ron loses his cool and takes a swipe at Peeves, snapping, "Get out of the way." This is a mistake.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR." Your heart still beats at a rate that could never be considered healthy, but suddenly you don't feel it, or anything anymore. You duck under Peeves, not looking to see if you are being followed, and run for your life, right to the end of the corridor, where you slam into a door. It is locked.

You take out your wand, but can think of no way to unlock the door. Your mind quickly goes through every spell that you have ever read about, but nothing comes to mind that will help you now.

"This is it!" Ron moans, as he pushes helplessly at the door. Really, you thought he was raised in a magic house, why is it that you are the one with your wand out? "We're done for! This is the end!" You can hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he can toward Peeves's shouts. You try to think of some other way out, but you are trapped in a dead end corridor. Sadly you have to agree with Ron's pessimism.

"Oh, move over." Hermione snarls. She snatches your wand, taps the lock, and whispers, "Alohomora!" The lock clicks, the door swings open, and for the first time tonight, you are glad for Hermione's presence. You all pile through it, shut it quickly, and press your ears against it, listening.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch says. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please.'"

"Don't mess with me, Peeves. Now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say 'please.'"

"All right. Please."

"Nothing! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" You hear Peeves whooshing away while Filch curses in rage.

"He thinks the door is locked," you whisper to the others. "I think we'll be okay... get off me, Neville." Neville keeps tugging on the sleeve of you bathrobe, so you finally grunt out an annoyed "what?"

As you turn around to show him just how little you appreciate his childishness, you see quite clearly, what. All your annoyance at him vanishes as you behold a monstrous dog. A dog that fills the whole space between ceiling and floor. It has three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in your direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

You aren't in a room, as you had foolishly assumed, but rather in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. Now you know why it is forbidden to those not wanting to die a painful death, if only you could continue on in blissful ignorance.

The dog stands quite still, all six eyes staring at you, and it's front legs sprung like coils, sits on top of a trap door in the floor. You know, somehow, that the only reason you are still alive is that your sudden appearance took it by surprise, but it is quickly getting over that. There is no mistaking what those thunderous growls mean.

You grab the doorknob, and then pause for an instant to wonder if Filch still awaits you outside. Deciding the between death and Filch, you'll take Filch. You wrench the door open. Neville falls out, just as the giant beast leaps forward. You slam the door shut, and run, almost fly, back down the corridor.

Filch must have hurried off to look for you somewhere else, because you don't see him anywhere. The other three split off from you at some point, but you hardly notice; you don't stop running until you're safe inside the Hufflepuff common room.

As you walk down the hallway to your dormitory, you contemplate whether there is any connection between the trap door, and the package that Hagrid took from Gringotts on the day it was broken into. Somehow, you think there just might be.


	9. Halloween

Disclaimer: With the walls complete, I erected marble columns by the arch that would serve as a doorway. No door would ever fill that doorway, for my work would always be free to those who wish to enter. As I established the pillars, I reflected that it was not profit that drove me to create, but the desire to make a tribute to the mighty J. K. Rowling. I have made no money off of you, and you and all things that you could ever know, are owned by J. K. Rowling, your true creator.

AN: Just a personal note. After only a couple months, this is now longer than the original fiction that I spent six years on. My conclusion: fan fiction is just easier to write. Probably because I don't have to create most of the characters, or the plot, or the world, or some of the actual writing. Reviews also help, I could use some on the more recent chapters.

Chapter Nine

Halloween

Malfoy can't believe his eyes when he sees that you and Ron are still at Hogwarts after the stunt he pulled last night.

After classes, you fill Ron in about the package that seems to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, and you spend some time wondering what can possibly need such protection. "It's either really valuable or really dangerous," says Ron.

"Or both," you add thoughtfully.

Neither Neville nor Hermione show the slightest interest in what lies beneath the trap door. All Neville cares about is never going near the dog again. The Ravenclaw now refuses to speak to either of you, but she is such a bossy know-it-all that you see this as a bonus. All you really want now is to settle things with Malfoy.

You are unsure what to think of him. On the one hand, you rather like not having any enemies, but you also feel that considering the situation, revenge is called for. Worse than having an enemy, is the uncertainty you now feel about whether Malfoy is now an enemy, or just an acquaintance that you rather dislike, like Hermione is. To your great delight, the blond menace in question helps you solve this problem after supper when you and Ron are studying in the library before curfew.

"Well, I must say, I'm rather surprised that two idiots like you would manage to avoid Filch so well. How did you to do it, hide behind your fame?"

"Nope, we're just immune to stupidly executed traps. Are all Malfoys so lacking in honor that they would challenge an opponent to a duel, and then hide behind a servant to get out of fighting it?"

"Shut it Potter, what would a Hufflepuff about honor anyway?"

"Evidently, more than a Slytherin. I don't want to have to make an enemy out of you Malfoy, so why don't we just avoid each other and pretend the other didn't existed?"

The slimy Slytherin actually has the nerve to laugh. "You don't get a choice, Potter. The moment you decided to take up with bloodtraitors, like Weasley, you chose your side, and you chose me as an enemy. Like I said on the train, you'll meet the same sticky end as your parents now."

You grin in relief. The world is so much easier when you know who your friends are, and who you have to destroy. "Brave words from a boy who couldn't manage to even show up for a fight he initiated. I suppose I can't blame you, I would be nervous about showing up to a fight I knew I was going to lose too."

Malfoy is outraged. "I would not have lost. I can beat you any time. I'll meet you tonight at midnight in the trophy room. Wizards duel, wands only."

You laugh, "Nice try, but we're not falling for that again. Go try to plot some evil scheme, or whatever you do when you're not being pathetic."

Amazingly, he actually listens to you, and stomps away in a rage. You savor your first victory, while Ron looks at you in confusion. You're really not sure why, you thought the conversation was perfectly easy to follow.

On Saturday, you Ernie, and Justin head down to the Qudditch pitch to watch as your house Quidditch captain, Cedric Diggory, holds tryouts for the team.

"My brother told me that Cedric is the youngest house Quidditch captain in a century. Sprout offered the position to Herbert Fleet, the Keeper, because he's a fifth year, and has been on the team as long as Cedric, but Herbert said that he wants to focus on keeping the Gryfindor keeper, who is also a fifth year." Ernie excitedly rambles to you and Justin, who know next to nothing about Quiditch, and hangs on to his every word as a result.

"Cedric caught the snitch in all three of his games last year, and the only reason that we didn't win the cup was because of the point spreads, but with him as captain, we should have it in the bag."

"What about the rest of the team?"

"Well, Maxine O'Flaherty is a great beater, of course, but beaters really need to be able to work together as a team, so Cedric will have to find someone who can fly well with her, and Malcolm Preece is the only chaser that we have left from last year, so Cedric will need to find two new chasers to work with him."

While you watch the tryouts, you decided that Ernie's enthusiasm for Cedric Diggory is well earned indeed. The older boy is by far the best flier of the group. You wish that you could see him going after the snitch, which Ernie says is the seeker's job, because it sounds like it would be a great way to see some really fast flying.

Cedric selects Anthony Rickett for the other beater. He and Maxine do fly well together, and Ernie hints that isn't all they do well together. Tamsin Applebee and Heidi Macavoy join Malcolm Preece as chasers. After the rest of the team has walked off, you head down to the pitch, so that you can talk to Cedric.

"That was wicked!"

The older boy smiles down benevolently at you. "Thank you. First time seeing Quidditch?"

You nod enthusiastically. "Yeah! I wish I could have seen you going after the snitch too. Seeking seems like the coolest part."

Cedric chuckles. "An aspiring seeker, eh?"

Justin pipes in, "Harry was the best flier in our class when we had lessons with the Ravenclaws, he caught on even faster than the purebloods who said they'd been flying for years."

Cedric considers for a moment. "Tell you what, we finished early, and Ravenclaw doesn't have the pitch 'till after lunch. Why don't you get a school broom, and we can chase the snitch for a while."

You run off to collect a school broom. When you return, Cedric has the snitch in hand, and Ernie and Justin are back to sitting in the stands to watch you.

"After I release the snitch, count to five, and then we'll both start looking for it. I have to warn you, chasing the snitch is fun, but most of the time, you are just flying around looking. You might not find it as exciting as you think."

You nod eagerly at him, impatient to be back in the air, so he frees the snitch. After counting to five, you leap into the air.

The wonderful feeling of freedom returns instantly. This is what you were born to do. You begin looking for the small golden ball.

Cedric is twenty feet or so above the goal posts, circling the field, so you join him at that level, and scan the pitch.

After several minutes, and a few dozen slow laps, a glitter of golden light catches your eye behind one of the goal posts.

You shoot off after it.

Cedric immediately sees what you are about and quickly catches you; his broom is of a much higher grade than the school ones. The snitch, as if sensing your pursuit, folds its winds and drops towards the ground. You curve around the goal post and dive straight after it, pulling ahead of the older seeker once more. When the ball is less then an inch from your hand, Cedric swipes in and snatches the snitch.

The ground is a mere foot from your head, and closing in fast. Somehow confident, you pull out of your dive and land gently on the grass, absorbing the last of the shock with your knees. Cedric lands next to you, somewhat harder.

"Bloody death, Potter!" Diggory exclaims, "was that really just your second time on a broom?"

You nod.

"You should show up to practices sometimes. Get some training and a decent broom, and you might just get my spot on the team next year. I've never seen such a natural."

You glow under the praise, and promise to show up for practices whenever you have the free time. You figure that if it means you get to fly more, you'll find some time for them.

Perhaps it is because you are now so busy, what with all your homework, and hanging around the Quidditch team a few evenings every week, but you can hardly believe it when you realize that you've already been at Hogwarts for two months. The castle is already starting to feel like a second home, and your lessons become more and more interesting as you master the basics.

On Halloween morning, you wake to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Your mood is somewhat dampened by the fact that you have potions first thing in the morning. Professor Snape sets you to work brewing your hardest potion yet. After a morning of careful measuring and desperately trying to avoid Professor Snape's attention, you are relieved when the time comes to turn in your potion and head to meet Ron as he comes from Herbology before lunch.

Lunch is a quick affair, as you will be enjoying a feast tonight to celebrate the holiday. After you are done with classes for the day, you meet up with Ron who is coming from his Charms class with the Ravenclaws.

You know that he was levitating feathers in Charms, because you had the class earlier in the week. You were partnered with Justin, and by the end of the class, you had both earned two points for Hufflepuff by managing to make your feathers float around the room. You were happy to note that both of you managed the feat before Malfoy, who didn't earn any points at all during the lesson.

Ron is in a foul mood when you meet him outside the Charms corridor. "I had to partner with Granger. It's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a nightmare, honestly." Someone knocks into you as they hurry past. It is Granger.

You catch a glimpse of her face, and are startled to see tears silently running down it.

"I think she heard you."

"So?" Ron looks decidedly uncomfortable now. "She must've noticed she's got no friends.

You don't see Granger in her usual place in the library when you and Ron are working on his potion's essay.

"Do you think that Snape will actually collect this the day after Holloween? Maybe we could get away with just messing around a bit."

"No, he collected ours today. Stupid potion was a pain to brew too. I thought it would be my favorite class, but Professor Snape ruins it for me."

Ron snorts. "I think that is the closest I've ever heard you come to insulting a teacher. Snape ruins it for everyone though."

On your way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, you and Ron overhear Susan Bones telling her friend Hannah that Granger was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone. "I tried telling her that I was her friend, but she just told me to go away. Something must have gotten to her."

"Maybe she just misses her friends from her muggle school. She must have been close with some of them."

Ron looks awkward at this, but the moment you enter the Great Hall, the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of your minds.

A thousand live bats flutter from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swoop over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appears suddenly on the golden plates, just like it did at the start-of-the-term banquet.

You are just helping yourself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell sprints into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face.

Everyone starts as he reaches Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumps against the table, and gasps, "Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know." He sinks to the floor in a dead faint.

There is an uproar.

It takes several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence. "Prefects," he rumbles, "lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

A Hufflepuff prefect stands up and addresses you and your fellow first years. "Follow me! First years, stick together! Our common room is the closest, so we should all be fine if you stick with me."

As you are queuing up, Ron makes his way over to you. "I've had a thought. Granger."

You immediately understand what he means. "She doesn't know about the troll." Ron follows the other Hufflepuffs with you until you get a chance to slip away down a deserted side corridor and hurry off toward the girls' bathroom. As you turn the corner, you hear quick footsteps behind you.

"Percy!" Ron hisses, pulling you behind a large stone griffin.

Peering around it, however, you see not Percy but Professor Snape. He crosses the corridor and disappears from view.

"What's he doing?" you whisper. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the professors?"

"Search me."

Quietly as possible, you creep along the next corridor after Professor Snape's fading footsteps.

"He's heading for the third floor," you say, but Ron holds up his hand.

"Can you smell something?" You sniff and a foul stench reaches your nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet that no one seems to clean. You hear it, a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Ron points, at the end of a passage to the left, something huge moves toward you. You shrink into the shadows and watch as it emerges into a patch of moonlight.

A horrible sight greets your eyes. Twelve feet tall, its skin a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. Short thick legs like tree trunks with flat, horny feet sprout from the boulder of a body. An incredible smell wafts off of it. It holds a huge wooden club, which drags along the floor because its arms are so long.

The troll stops next to a doorway and peers inside. It waggles its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouches slowly into the room.

"The key is in the lock." you mutter. "We could lock it in."

"Good idea."

You edge toward the open door, your mouth dry, praying the troll isn't about to come out of it. With a great leap, you manage to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.

"Yes!" Flushed with your victory, you start to run back up the passage, but as you reach the corner you hear something that makes your hearts stop, a high, petrified scream. It comes from the chamber you'd just locked.

"Oh, no" Ron is as pale as the Bloody Baron.

"It's the girls' bathroom!" you gasp.

"Granger!" you say together.

It is the last thing you want to do, but what choice do you have? Wheeling around, you sprint back to the door and turn the key, fumbling in your panic. You pull the door open and run inside.

Hermione Granger shrinks against the wall opposite, looking as if she is about to faint. The troll advances on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it goes.

"Confuse it!" you desperately shout to Ron, and seizing a tap, you throw it as hard as you can against the wall.

The troll stops a few feet from Granger. It lumbers around, blinking stupidly, to see what has made the noise. Its mean little eyes see you. It hesitates, then makes for you instead, lifting its club as it goes.

"Oy, pea-brain!" Ron yells from the other side of the chamber, and he throws a metal pipe at it. The troll doesn't even seem to notice the pipe hitting its shoulder, but it hears the yell and pauses again, turning its ugly snout toward Ron instead, giving you time to run around it.

"Come on, run, run!" You shout at Granger, trying to pull her toward the door, but she can't move; she still presses herself flat against the wall, her mouth wide with terror.

The shouting and the echoes seem to drive the troll berserk. It roars again and starts toward Ron, who is nearest and has no way to escape.

Seeing your new best friend about to die, you do something that is becoming disturbingly common, and go into shock. Taking a great running leap you manage to fasten your arms around the troll's neck from behind. The troll doesn't seem to even notice you hanging there, but evidently even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and as your wand was still in your hand when you jumped, it went straight up one of the troll's nostrils.

Howling with pain, the troll twists and flails its club, with you hanging for dear life; any second now the troll will rip you off or catch you with its club. "Get Granger out, before I lose my grip," you scream at Ron.

Never being one to simply listen to instructions, Ron ignores you, and pulls out his own wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The club flies suddenly out of the troll's hand, rises high up into the air, turns slowly over, and drops, with a satisfying crack, onto its owner's head. The troll sways on the spot and then falls flat on its face, with a thud that makes the whole room tremble.

You get shakily to your feet. Ron stands there, with his wands still raised, staring at what he has done.

It is Granger who speaks first. "Is it dead?"

You look at the troll carefully. "I don't think so; I think it's just been knocked out." You bend down and pull your wand from the troll's nose. It is covered in what looks like lumpy gray glue. "Urgh, troll boogers." You wipe it on the troll's trousers.

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps make the three of you look up. You hadn't realized what a racket you had been making, but of course someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll's roars. A moment later, Professor McGonagall comes bursting into the room, closely followed by Professor Snape, with Professor Quirrell bringing up the rear. Professor Quirrell takes one look at the troll, lets out a faint whimper, and sits quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart. Professor Snape bends over the troll to examine it. Professor McGonagall looks at you and Ron. You have never seen her look so angry. Her lips are white. Hopes of winning some points for Hufflepuff fade quickly from your mind.

"What on earth were you thinking of? You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitories?"

Professor Snape gives you a quick, piercing look. You look at the floor, ashamed, and wish that Ron would put his wand down.

Unexpectedly, a small voice comes from the shadows. "Please, Professor McGonagall, they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

Granger has managed to get to her feet at last. "I went looking for the troll because I, I thought I could deal with it on my own; you know, because I've read all about them."

Ron drops his wand. Hermione Granger, telling a bold faced lie to a professor, to help get other people out of trouble? You had thought better of her.

"If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now." While, that was true, and, you suppose, a good reason for her to lie on your behalf. "Harry stuck his wand up its nose and Ron knocked it out with it's own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

You try to look as if this story isn't new to you.

"Well, in that case. Miss. Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own. I might have expected it from one of my Gryffindors, but how could a Ravenclaw be so foolish?" Hermione hangs her head.

You are speechless. Granger - Hermione - is the last person you would expect to do anything against the rules, and yet, here she is, pretending that she has, to get you out of trouble. It's as if Professor Snape had started handing out sweets.

"Miss. Granger, ten points will be taken from Ravenclaw for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get back to your common room. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Hermione leaves, and Professor McGonagall turns to you and Ron. "Well, I still say that you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a fully-grown mountain troll. You each win your respective houses five points for looking out for a member of a different house. Professor Dumbeldore will be informed of this. You may go."

You hurry out of the chamber and don't speak until you are two floors away, and about to split up to head to your respective common rooms. It is a relief to be away from the glare of the Professors, quite apart from anything else.

"We should have gotten more than five points," Ron grumbles.

"At least we didn't lose points like Hermione."

"Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admits. "Mind you, we did save her."

You nod. "True, although she might not have needed saving if we hadn't locked the thing in with her." With that, you go your separate ways.

From now on, you decide, you and Hermione Granger have become friends. There are some things in this world that you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll and then deceiving a Professor is one of them.


	10. The Children of Merlin

Disclaimer: When I finished the construction of the actual building, I turned my gaze upward. The building had no roof, so that the heavens would be forever visible for those who chose to look upward towards something new. I knew that it was finally time for me to start making original work, and that what I had already built would ensure that no matter how much I strayed from her glorious design, all would still belong to J K Rowling. Mars was bright that night.

AN: Finally, the chapter that I have eagerly awaited writing from the start. Hey look, a chapter title that doesn't appear in cannon.

Chapter Ten

The Children of Merlin

As November starts, the weather turns very cold. The mountains around the school become icy gray and the lake like chilled steel. Every morning, the ground is covered in frost. You sometimes see Hagrid from an upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaver-skin boots.

The Quidditch season has begun, and Cedric insists that he is better from all the practicing that he had been doing with you. You think that he is just being nice; he almost always beats you to the snitch. On Saturday you will get to see your first real Quidditch game when Gryffindor plays against Slytherin, the only house not represented in your closest group of friends, now that Hermione has joined it.

The three of you sit outside under a tree by the lake. The air is cold but still, and a bright blue fire that Hermione has conjured in a jam jar so it can be carried around, warms you. Even though it is Friday afternoon, you aren't visiting Hagrid because he said that he had some things to do. You'll see him tomorrow after the Quidditch game instead.

Hermione is trying to get Ron to finish a Charms essay. He wanted to copy from her, but much to your relief, she wouldn't let him. You think that it is obvious that it is a bad idea, because her writing shows much more elegance then either of yours, and surely the Professors would be able to tell the difference right away.

Hermione gave Ron a different reason. "How are you going to learn anything if you just copy from me?" Ron doesn't like it, but he was somewhat mollified that she is at least helping him by looking over what he has written.

You put your Hufflepuff work ethic to work and finished your Charms essay last night, so while Ron struggles to write his essay, and Hermione reads over yours to make sure that it is up to her standards, you are reading a book on Quidditch that she found for you. Clearly, there are great advantages to having a Ravenclaw friend.

That thought reminds you of something that has been bothering you recently. "I've noticed something about us that's not quite normal."

Ron looks up, eager for a break from his work. "Isn't that a good thing? Who wants to be normal?"

"Me."

Hermione sighs. She doesn't like being interrupted while she is reading, but you can't help it. She always seems to be reading. "What isn't normal about us?"

You take a deep breath to organize your argument. "All three of us come from different houses, but there are four houses, not three."

Hermione nods. "So? I think that we're supposed to have friends in other houses. Isn't that why Professor McGonagall gave you each five points?"

"Yeah, but we don't have any friends in Slytherin. How can there be one of us from three of the four houses, but nobody from the fourth?"

Ron snorts. "You don't want a Slytherin friend, mate; they're all slimy racists, like Malfoy."

Hermione frowns. "They can't all be bad."

"They are. That's why they got sorted into Slytherin."

You disagree, "They got sorted into Slytherin because they are cunning and ambitious, not because they are racist. You and I are both better off having a smart friend like Hermione, right?"

Ron nods.

"And her and I are both better off having someone brave like you to watch our backs, right?"

Another nod.

"And I'd like to think that the you of two are better off having a loyal friend like me..."

"Definitely," Ron puts in. "You're a great friend to have."

"So it makes sense that we would all be better off with a cunning friend from Slytherin."

"Nope. Here's your problem, you don't realize that Slytherins don't have friends; they just have people that they use."

You sigh. "Alright. Then we would all be better off being used by a Slytherin if they helped us out along the way too."

Hermione looks thoughtful. "I think you're going too far with that one, but your first point was a good one. We should try to make friends with a Slytherin. It just makes sense."

A look of indignation appears on Ron's face. "I can't believe that _you_ want to be friends with a Slytherin. You're muggleborn; they don't even see muggleborns as people. They just lump you all together into a single group, and hate you."

"Well, some of them are like that, but I am sure that there are some of them who don't put people together into large homogeneous groups. If they would see me as an individual, then we could be friends."

Now Ron just looks confused. "Large what?"

Hermione sighs. "It means that they can't all see certain types of people as all being the same."

Ron shakes his head. "But they do; that's why they're all evil, and that's why we shouldn't be friends with any of them."

You think that Ron might have missed Hermione's point, and decide to try something different. "Look, the founders were all friends. How cool would it be to be like them, by having a friend in each house?"

"Yeah, but Slytherin tried to stab the other founders in the back. That's why you shouldn't ever trust a Slytherin."

Hermione enters the debate again. "He has a point you know. Not about not being friends with Slytherins, but about the whole Slytherin betraying the others thing."

"See, she agrees with me again, and she's the smart Ravenclaw one."

You are starting to get frustrated now. "But don't you see? We're out of balance."

Ron grins. "We're out of balance anyway. We have two boys and a girl. Besides, who cares about balance?"

"I do. That's why we need a Slytherin girl. It will bring balance to our group."

Hermione nods. "You're right, then it will all be fair. How do we go about making friends with a Slytherin girl though?"

"You don't, because Slytherins don't make friends."

"Shut up, Ron."

"I say we pick a girl and then send her an invitation."

Hermione lights up. "Yes! I could write it up. I've been working on learning calligraphy since we have to write with quills anyway." You wonder where she finds the time for it all. She's always ahead on classwork, she helps you and Ron with your classes now, she's always reading something for fun, _and _she does calligraphy. "If we're going to send her an invitation, we should be inviting her to something."

You frown. "I thought we were inviting her to be our friend?"

"We are, but we can't just send her a note asking her to be our friend. We should start a club, and invite her to join it."

Ron grins weakly. "You can't be friends with a Slytherin, but I guess if you're part of a club, you can't help it if they join too. Do I have to be a part of it? I really don't like the idea of spending time with a Slytherin."

You look at him, scandalized. "Yes! If you don't join, then we won't have a Gryffindor, and we'll be short a guy. I'd much rather hang around with you than one of your dorm mates."

Hermione nods. "So, what should we call ourselves?"

"Forever United. We could be FU for short."

Ron laughs for some reason, but Hermione does not look happy. "Um, no. How about The Children of Hogwarts? That sounds much better, we could be The Children for short."

"I like the first one better, but yours does sound less stupid," Ron says.

You don't see what was wrong with Forever United, but you will go with the will of the group. "Alright, I like The Children, but aren't all the students kind of the children of Hogwarts? How about something that sounds cool. We could be Dumbledore's Children, and still be The Children for short, or The DC if we want."

Hermione shakes her head. "You need to move on from this two letter trend, and I don't want to be calling myself Dumbledore's child. He's still alive, so it's weird."

You nod. "Point. We'll have to go with someone from history, and someone awesome."

"You mean like Merlin?"

You look at Ron. "Brilliant! We shall be: The Children of Merlin," you declare dramatically, for the world to hear. Ron and Hermione both nod at this, so you continue. "If we're going to form The Children, we should make it a secret society."

"Why?"

"Because secret societies are wicked!"

Hermione nods. "Yes, but only if they have secret knowledge, and a special library."

You grin at her. "As the Ravenclaw, it is only proper that you be in charge of the secret knowledge, and all the knowledge for that matter, and we can work on a library if you want, but it sounds kind of boring. Especially when we have the whole Hogwarts library."

Ron adds, "We already have some secret knowledge, we know about that three-headed dog, and that it is guarding whatever Hagrid took from Gringotts."

You nod enthusiastically, but Hermione just looks confused. "What did Hagrid take from Gringotts?"

After you and Ron get Hermione caught up on what you know about the three-headed dog and Hagrid's stop at Gringotts, you turn the discussion back to matters of The Children. "Who are we going to invite to join. I think that Parkinson is out. She's too close to Malfoy."

Hermione nods in agreement, so you continue. "I was thinking of Greengrass. She seems like the nicest, at least, so far as I can tell. What do you know about her family, Ron?"

Ron shrugs. "Not much. I've never heard of them being supporters of You-Know-Who, like the Malfoys and the Parkinsons, so that might be a start."

"Alright, lets invite Daphne then. Oh, and I think that we should have a president and a secretary, if we're going to have an organization; it just seems proper," Hermione says.

"I don't know. I think that we should all be equal, and we don't really need a president with only four people. We should just vote on things. You can be the secretary though, if you want."

Hermione nods and takes out some fresh parchment. "I'll do that then."

"When do you think that you can have the invitation for Greengrass ready?"

"I'll start working on it right now, and you can give it to her after dinner."

While Hermione works on the invitation, you go back to reading the Quidditch book she found for you, Quidditch Through the Ages, and Ron begrudgingly returns to writing his essay.

You are just reading about how there are seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul, and how all of them happened during a World Cup match in 1473, when Professor Snape comes across the yard. You notice at once that he is limping, and move to block the blue fire from his view, not being sure that it is allowed. Unfortunately, something about your guilty look must have caught his eye. He doesn't seem to see the fire, but he is looking for a reason to tell you off anyway.

"What's that you've got there, Potter?"

It is Quidditch Through the Ages; you show him.

"Library books are not to be taken outside the school," Professor Snape says. "Give it to me. Five points from Hufflepuff."

"I haven't even heard of that rule before," you mutter as Professor Snape limps away. "Wonder what's wrong with his leg?"

"Dunno, but I hope it's really hurting him," says Ron bitterly.

When you head in for dinner, Hermione hands you the finished invitation for Greengrass. You quickly look it over before gathering your stuff.

Ms. Daphne Greengrass,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to be invited to join The Children of Merlin on behalf of the Slytherin house to represent the contingency of first year Slytherins among the ranks of our organization. Congratulations on your acceptance.

The Children of Merlin are a highly selective a group of students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry devoted to advancing the interests of house equality and inter-house unity. Due to the secrete nature of our society, we ask that you not mention our existence to any individuals that may not already be aware of us. In order to accept our invitation, you are to present yourself at the library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the hour of four and eleven minutes on the day after the delivery of this notice, that day being a Saturday. Should you fail to comply with this for any reason, a second notice shall be delivered to your person within one week's time. Failure to comply with three (3) notices shall result in the rescinding of your invitation, and the selection of one of your dorm mates. In this case, you are to forget that this invitation, and the two following ones were issued, and refrain from mentioning these notices to any individual.

We look forward to making your acquaintance in person.

Sincerely Yours,

The Children of Merlin

"It looks brilliant, but I didn't realize that we were dedicated to the interests of house equality and inter house unity."

Hermione grins sheepishly. "Well, we never discussed it, but I figured that if we have a secret society, we need a mission statement, and considering the nature of our membership, it seemed appropriate."

You smile at her and nod. "Sounds good to me."

Ron merely grunts. You suspect that he is not particularly devoted to the stated interests of The Children, but every organization needs a decenter, that just seems normal. Besides, if you all agreed about everything, then there wouldn't be much balance.

When you get back to your dorm, you put your school stuff away, and carefully fold the parchment with the invitation on it. This done, you grab a candle and pour some wax over the fold to seal it; these things must be done properly after all.

On your way to the Great Hall, you stop by a passage where the Slytherins come from and duck into an alcove. You quietly cast the levitation charm on the invitation, and wait for Greengrass to pass by on her way to dinner.

You see her heading over with Tracy Davis after about five minutes of waiting.

Casting a quiet levitation charm on the invitation, you flout it over to Greengrass. Looking somewhat puzzled, she snatches it out of the air, and pockets it, without missing a beat in whatever conversation she is having with Davis.

That evening after dinner you want to read more about the 1473 World Cup match, so you decide to see if you can get it back from Professor Snape. Since he made up the rule that he used to take Quidditch Through the Ages from you in the first place, you suspect that he will give it back to you if you ask him in front of other teachers. With this in mind you tell Justin and Ernie that you are headed to get a book back from Professor Snape and leave the Hufflepuff common room.

You make your way up to the staffroom and knock. There is no answer. You knock again. Nothing.

Deciding to take a leaf from Ron's book, you push the door ajar and peer inside to see if Professor Snape has left the book there.

Immediately you regret your mistake and resolve not to take any more leaves from Gryffindor books. Professor Snape and Filch are inside, alone. Professor Snape holds his robes above his knees. One of his legs is bloody and mangled. Filtch hands Professor Snape a bandage.

"Blasted thing," Snape says. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"

You try to shut the door quietly but...

"POTTER!" Your heart skips a beat. You have been caught.

Professor Snape's face twists with fury as he drops his robes quickly to hide his leg. You take a quick shaky breath.

"I just wondered if I could have my book back."

"GET OUT! OUT!"

You leave before Professor Snape can take any points from Hufflepuff, and sprint back down to the safety of the Hufflepuff common room.

The next day, you and Hermione sit with Ron to cheer for Gryffindor. While everyone else is distracted watching the Gryffindor seeker, a second year named Cormac McLaggen, to see if he will be any good, you tell Ron and Hermione what you saw last night.

"You know what this means?" you finish breathlessly. "He tried to get passed that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him. He's after whatever it's guarding! And I'd bet a whole bag of Galleons that he let that troll in, to make a diversion!"

Hermione's eyes are wide.

"No, he wouldn't," she says. " I know he's not very nice, but he wouldn't try to steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe."

"Honestly Hermione, you think all teachers are saints or something," snaps Ron. "I'm with Harry. I wouldn't put anything past Snape, but what's he after? What's that dog guarding?"

Further speculation is stopped by the humiliation of the Gryffindor seeker when Slytherin's seeker snatches the snitch from right above his head because he was too busy yelling at one of Ron's twin brothers to notice it. That wins Slytherin 150 points and ends the game 190 - 20 in their favor.

"At least Greengrass will be in a better mood to accept our offer now," you remark. Ron does not seem to see this as a bright side.

Twenty minutes later, you are being made a cup of strong tea back at Hagrid's. As the large man pours the tea, you decide that someone who can tell Professor Dumbledore has to be told about what Professor Snape is up to.

"I've found something our about Professor Snape," you tell him. Hermione and Ron look at each other, wondering what you are going to tell him, but you have already decided on the truth. "He tried to get passed that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him, we think that he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

Hagrid drops the teapot. "How do you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah, he's mine, bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year. I lent him ter Dumbledore ter guard the..."

"Yes?" you ask eagerly.

"Now, don't ask me anymore. That's top secret, that is."

"But Professor Snape's trying to steal it."

"Rubbish. Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did Fluffy bite him then?"

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong! Now listen ter me, all three o' yeh; yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget Fluffy, an' yeh forget what he's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel."

"Aha! So there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?"

Hagrid looks furious with himself, so you decide to leave the matter alone for now.

At a quarter to four, the three of you take your leave of Hagrid, and head to the library.

When you get to the library, you find a table hidden deep in the stacks, and wait for Greengrass to arrive. While you wait, you pull out a history book that Hermione had lent you, and Hermione pulls out your charms essay to resume looking over it.

Ron sighs. "Can't we play chess while we wait or something?"

You close the book again, not having gotten a chance to start reading it. "Do you have a chess board?"

This thought doesn't seem to have occurred to Ron when he asked the question, so instead, he reaches into his bag and pulls out a deck of cards. "Alright, fancy a game of exploding snap then?"

"Here? Won't that be a bit loud?" Fortunately you never have to decide what to play, because at that moment Greengrass comes walking by, looking rather confused.

You decide to help her out. "Ah, hello Ms. Greengrass. What brings you to the library on this fine day?"

Greengrass turns to look at you, clearly surprised that you said anything to her. "None of your business, Potter."

Hermione glares at you. "Don't be like that, Harry. I'm glad you showed up, Daphne. Does this mean that you are interested in joining The Children of Merlin?"

Now Greengrass is beyond surprised. "You're The Children of Merlin?"

You nod at her. "We have a person from each house, so that we're balanced. All we need is a Slytherin, and we'll have all our members."

Greengrass takes a seat in the final chair. "Okay, so what is it that you're about? What do The Children of Merlin stand for? And why is there a muggleborn with you?"

"See! I told you that we would be better off without a Slytherin. The lot of them can't see past their own prejudice."

"Really, Ron. There have to be some of them who can. You just sound silly," says Hermione.

"You heard her, and you're the one that she insulted, not me."

"She didn't insult me, she just asked why I was here."

You sigh. "She has a point." You turn back to Greengrass. "The Children of Merlin are four people of different houses working together. We're all better off when we have some of everybody working together. Hermione's here because she is a Child, like the rest of us, and hopefully soon like you. Oh, and I was also thinking that we could be about not liking Draco Malfoy, because he is a jerk."

Greengrass snorts, and then looks thoughtful. After a few minutes, she says, "Okay, I'm supposed to be the ambitious one, right, because I'm the Slytherin?"

You nod. "Ambitious and cunning."

"Then I guess I'm in, but I have to say that you really need some better goals. Perhaps you, ah, we could be about people from different houses working together to achieve wealth, power, and greatness while destroying Draco Malfoy in every legal way that we can."

You and Hermione just look at each other, but Ron's eyes light up. "You think that we could get wealth and greatness?"

You shrug. "I guess that's why we needed a Slytherin, but I've already got wealth, and I don't really want power or greatness. I liked the part about destroying Malfoy in every legal way that we can though."

"You might have some wealth, but wouldn't you want to make thousands of Galleons?"

"I've got thousands of Galleons."

"Yeah, but you could make thousands more Galleons."

"What would I do with that, I've already got some."

Ron starts to look a bit uncomfortable, and Hermione fights not to laugh, but Daphne is frustrated. "But, but, what about your kids? Don't you want them to have thousands of Galleons too? And their kids? Don't you want to make the Potter line great and wealthy?"

You shrug. "Not really. I just want to be normal."

It seems that was not what Daphne was hoping to hear. "Ahh! You are such a Hufflepuff! This is why your house never makes anything of itself. Fine. We'll just focus on Malfoy, and maybe Pansy, for now. Why are we a secret society if that is all we're about?"

You grin. "Because it sounded really cool. Besides, that way Hermione can be the keeper of our secret knowledge."

The frustration drains from Daphne's face. "You have secret knowledge?"

You nod, and look to Hermione. She explains to Daphne about the three headed dog, Fluffy, and the trap door and Nicolas Flamel, and everything you suspect, except for Professor Snape's involvement.

When Hermione is done, you tell Daphne your theory about Professor Snape.

"But, it can't be Snape that's after the secret treasure, not if Dumbledore's hiding it," says Daphne.

"Why not? Just because he's the head of your house doesn't mean that he wouldn't take something if he had something to gain."

She shakes her head. "No, you don't understand. Snape is Dumbledore's man. During the war, Snape was Dumbledore's spy among You-Know-Who's followers. After Harry Pott, ah, you took care of You-Know-Who, Snape was arrested, and Dumbledore came to his rescue. Said that Snape was his spy, and that he trusted him completely. Dumbledore doesn't trust hardly anyone completely, so he must have a really good reason for having so much trust in Snape."

You consider this for a moment. "That still doesn't explain why he got bit by Fluffy on Halloween."

"Really, Harry. This theory of yours is just silly. Snape's a professor, and if Professor Dumbledore trusts him that much, then he must be trustworthy. Besides, he could have gotten bit while trying to protect whatever it is," says Hermione.

"Maybe." You are still not convinced, but there is no use arguing now that there are two of them. The key is to find out who Nicolas Flamel is.


	11. The Mirror of Erised

Disclaimer: After enjoying my night under the stars in The Temple of Rowling, I awoke refreshed and ready to begin my next project. By mid-afternoon, I had made a good start on the alter that would be dedicated to the imaginative Rowling, true owner of all that was, is, and will ever be in your universe.

AN: The research that my awesome beta did for me indicates that my Daphne is actually cannon compliant, and will help her to stay that way until my changes justify her being otherwise. She assures me that you can also thank her for The Children of Merlin not being a secrete society. Go awesome betas!

AN2: Sorry his is so late, I have been having computer trouble, and evidently even smart phones don't like to upload text files.

Chapter Eleven

The Mirror of Erised

Christmas is coming. One morning in mid-December, you wake to find Hogwarts covered in snow. The lake is frozen solid, and the Weasley twins are punished for bewitching several snowballs to bounce off the back of Professor Quirrell's turban. Ron found this hilarious, but Danphne and Hermione were not amused. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy skies to deliver mail have to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they can fly off again.

No one can wait for the holidays to start. While the Hufflepuff common room and the Great Hall have roaring fires, the drafty corridors have become icy and a bitter wind tattles the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all, are Professor Snape's classes down in the dungeons, where your breath rises in a mist before you and you keep as close as possible to your hot cauldrons.

In the afternoons, you and your fellow Children explore the castle. You found an unused classroom, and took it over as your headquarters. You have fallen into the pattern of hanging out with Hagrid, who has taken to Daphne just as he did with Ron and Hermione, on Fridays, and spending Saturdays in your new headquarters doing homework in the mornings and playing games in the afternoons. Sundays are spent separately, to keep The Children a secret, usually in the library looking for anything about Nicolas Flamel.

Ron has started teaching you wizard's chess. This is exactly like muggle chess except that the figures are alive, which makes it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron's set is very old and battered. Like everything else he owns, it once belonged to someone else in his family. In this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen aren't a drawback at all. Ron knows them so well that he never has trouble getting them to do what he wants.

You play with a chess set Daphne has lent you, and they don't trust you at all. You aren't a very good player yet, and they keep shouting different bits of advice at you, which confuses you. "Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send him instead, we can afford to lose him." Definitely not a Hufflepuff set.

Daphne interrupts your game, distracting you, but not Ron, who can talk and play at the same time. This will probably lead to him defeating you even more spectacularly than usual. "Something has been bothering me. Do any of the Professors know about The Children?"

You think she might have missed the point of having a secret society. "No, Hagrid knows that we're friends, of course, but other than that, we have to keep our secret."

"It just seems that we should make sure we aren't breaking any rules. That way, if we get caught, we won't get in trouble." She has a point. "I think that we should let Snape know, he was a spy, so he knows how to keep a secret."

You shake your head. "Definitely not. I know he's your head of house, but that would be unfair to the rest of us. How would you like it if we told, say Professor McGonagall?"

"What's wrong with McGonagall?" asks Ron.

"Nothing, but she's Gryffindor's head of house, so she probably doesn't like Slytherin. That wouldn't be fair to Daphne," Hermione explains.

"Actually, McGonagall would be my second choice. I don't think she likes us much, but she is always fair, and she is the deputy headmistress."

"Okay, if you don't mind. Do either of you two have a problem with her?"

Ron and Hermione shake their heads, so that evening after dinner you approach Professor McGonagall and tell her that you have formed The Children. She seems happy that people from different houses are getting along, and assures you that you are not breaking any rules.

"I do feel so sorry," says Malfoy, one Charms class, "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home."

He looks at you as he speaks. Crabbe and Goyle chuckle. You ignore them and continue to try and make the end of your wand light up like Professor Flitwick had by saying, "Lumos."

It is true that you aren't going back home for Christmas. Professor Sprout came around last week making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and you signed up after some deliberation. After your last month at home, you aren't sure how you would be received by your family, and figured that you would rather put your reunion off until summer vacation. Ron and his brothers are staying too, because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are going to Romania to visit Charlie.

When you meet up with the other Children after Charms, you find a large fir tree blocking the corridor ahead. Two enormous feet stick out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound tells you that Hagrid is behind it.

"Hi, Hagrid, want any help?" Ron asks, sticking his head through the branches.

"Nah, I'm all right, thanks Ron."

"Would you mind moving out of the way?" comes Malfoy's cold drawl from behind you. "Are you trying to earn some extra money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose. That hut of Hagrid's must seem like a palace compared to what your family's used to."

Ron dives at Malfoy just as Professor Snape comes up the stairs, causing Daphne to mutter, "What doesn't he understand about every legal means possible?" to herself.

"WEASLEY!"

Ron lets go of the front of Malfoy's robes.

"He was provoked, Professor Snape," says Hagrid, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. "Malfoy was insultin' his family."

"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid." Snape says silkily. "Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn't more. Move along, all of you.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle push roughly past the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.

"Ms. Greengrass, move along. This confrontation is over."

"Yes, Professor." Daphne wisely chooses not to correct Professor Snape's assumption about her loyalties and slides around the tree and out of sight.

Ron grinds his teeth in frustration until Professor Snape has left. "I'll get him; one of these days, I'll get him..."

"I hate them both. Malfoy and Professor Snape. There was no need to yell at Daphne like that, and she's in his house," you add.

"Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas. Tell yeh what, come with me an' see the Great Hall. Looks like a treat."

So the three of you follow Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick are busy with Christmas decorations.

"Ah, Hagrid, the last tree. Put it in the fat corner, would you?"

The hall looks spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hang all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stand around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

"How many days you got left until yer holidays?"

"Just one," says Hermione, "and that reminds me. Harry, Ron, we've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."

"Oh, yeah, you're right." Ron tears his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who has golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and trails them over the branches of the new tree.

"The Library? Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"

"Oh, we're not working," you tell him brightly. "Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is."

"Yeh what? Listen here, I've told yeh; drop it. It's nothin' ter do with yeh what Fluffy's guardin'."

"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all," says Hermione.

"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble? We must have been through half the books about great wizards of the modern age already, and we can't find him anywhere. Just give us a hint; I know that I've read his name somewhere," you add.

"I'm sayin' nothin'," Hagrid says flatly.

"We'll just have to find out for ourselves, then," says Ron, and you leave Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurry off to the library.

You've been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid let it slip. The trouble is: it is very hard to know where to begin. Not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book has made things extremely difficult. Then, of course, there is the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.

Hermione takes out a list of subjects and titles she has decided to search while Ron strides off down a row of books and starts pulling them off the shelves at random. You see that Daphne is already searching a section on business leaders of the twentieth century, having missed going to the Great Hall with Hagrid because of Professor Snape. You wonder over to the Restricted Section. You have been wondering for a while if Flamel isn't somewhere in there. Unfortunately, you need a specially signed note from one of the professors to look in any of the restricted books, and you know you'll never get one. These are books containing powerful dark magic never taught at Hogwarts, and only read by older students studying advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"What are you looking for, boy?"

"Nothing," you reply automatically.

Madam Pince, the librarian brandishes a feather duster at you. "You'd better get out, then. Go on, out."

Wishing you'd been a bit quicker at thinking up some story, you leave the library. You already agreed not to ask Madam Pince where you can find Flamel. You are sure she could tell you, but you can't risk Professor Snape, or whoever the girls think is after the whatever, hearing what you are up to.

You wait outside in the corridor to see if the other three find anything, but you aren't very hopeful. Five minutes later Ron, Hermione, and Daphne join you, shaking their heads. You head off to lunch.

"You'll keep searching while we're away, won't you?" Hermione asks. "And send us an owl if you find anything."

"And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is. It'd be safe to ask them," says Ron.

"Very safe, as they're both dentists."

"My dad might know, he was in Ravenclaw, and my family isn't close enough with Dumbledore to know about Fluffy, so it should be safe to ask them too."

You split up before you hit the Great Hall to avoid The Children being discovered.

Once the holidays start, you and Ron are having too good a time to think much about Flamel. You have the newly dubbed Room of Merlin to yourselves. With the girls gone, you are free to talk about ways of getting Malfoy expelled, which are fun to talk about, even if you would never actually have the guts to try any of them, and agree with each other that Snape is definitely the one trying to get past Fluffy.

On Christmas Eve, you go to bed in your now empty dorm. Looking forward to the next day for the food and fun, you hope that just maybe your family will still send you a present this year. When you wake the next day, the first first thing you see is a small pile of packages at the foot of your bed.

You pick up the top parcel. It is wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it is 'To Harry, from Hagrid.' Inside is a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid obviously whittled it himself. You blow it; it sounds like an owl.

A second, small parcel contains a note.

_We received your message and enclosed your Christmas present. Hope that school is going well, and look forward to seeing you over your summer holiday. Don't get freaky on us just because you are surrounded by weirdos. From Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley._

Inside you find a book on 1980s business attire called, _How to Look Like a Normal Businessman At Work_.

Well, that was nice of them. You turn next to a lumpy parcel, and tear it open to find a thick, hand-knit sweater in emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge. The fudge is very tasty, and you can't help thinking that it was very nice of whoever sent it.

The next two boxes also contain chocolate. Daphne and Hermione both sent you a large box of Chocolate Frogs. Daphne has a copy of Dumbledore's card attached to a note wishing you a Happy Christmas and telling you that you should read about the Headmaster, because she thinks that you will find it interesting.

You start re-reading Professor Dumbledore's card, and gasp when you get to the part about his alchemy partner. So, it would seem that Nicolas Flamel is an alchemist. Now you know where to look when you head back to the library. You have never been so grateful that you thought to make friends with a Slytherin. Who knows how long it might have taken you to realize this if Daphne hadn't helped.

Now you only have one parcel to unwrap. You pick it up and feel it. It is very light.

When you unwrap it, something fluid and silvery gray slithers to the floor, where it lays in gleaming folds.

You pick the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It feels strange, like water woven into material. Looking down, you realize that a note fell out of the cloth. The note is written in narrow, loopy writing that you have never seen before.

Your father left this in my possession before he died.

It is time it was returned to you.

Use it well.

A Very Merry Christmas to you.

There is no signature. This all strikes you as very strange. Who sent the note? Did it really belong to your father?

Deciding that having something that belonged to your father overcomes weirdness, you examine the cloth more closely. It is a cloak, though you can't see yourself actually wearing such an unusual cloak, especially after the present that the living members of your family sent you.

Curious, you decide to at least try it on and see how it looks. It might not be so bad once you are wearing it. Donning the cloak, you step in front of the mirror in your dorm, and nearly faint. Your face looks back at you just as you would expect it to, but your body no longer seems to support it.

Not trusting the mirror, you look down, and see that you have no feet. Your toes still wiggle, but your feet can't be seen. When you take off the cloak in a panic, your body reappears.

You blink. Suddenly an idea hits you, the sort of idea that you would have shuddered at just a year ago, but an idea still. Perhaps the cloak makes the wearer invisible.

To test this, you throw the cloak back over your shoulders, and your body vanishes once more in the mirror. Reaching back, you find a hood, and pull it over your head.

Now the mirror says that there is nobody in your room, but when you look down, you can still see your feet. This is actually kind of cool.

After taking off your father's cloak, you dress, putting on your new sweater, and head down to the Great Hall for Christmas dinner. The knit sweater is quite warm, and you are sure that your family would like it much more than your new cloak.

Because so few people stay at Hogwarts over Christmas, the house tables have been removed for the day, and replaced with a single large table where everyone, student and professor alike, dines together. You grab a seat next to Ron and start loading your plate with what has to be the best Christmas dinner of your life. There are a hundred fat, roasted turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas; tureens of buttered peas, boiled goose, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce, and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table. The party favors are nothing like the ones that your family usually buys, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. You pull a wizard cracker with Fred, Ron's brother, and it doesn't just bang, it goes off with a blast like a cannon and engulfs you all in a cloud of blue smoke, while a real admiral's hat and several live, white mice explode from inside. Dumbledore has swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet, and chuckles merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick just finished reading him.

Flaming Christmas pudding follows the turkey. Percy nearly breaks his teeth on a silver sickle embedded in his slice. You watch Hagrid as he gets redder and redder in the face and calls for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to your amazement, giggles and blushes, her top hat lopsided.

When you finally leave the table, you are loaded down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of non-explodable luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and your own new wizard's chess set. The white mice have vanished, and you have a nasty feeling that they will end up as Mrs. Norris's Christmas dinner.

As you leave, you notice that Ron too is sporting a new hand-knit sweater. He seems to notice yours at the same time as you notice his. "Oh no, think I know who that's from. My mom. I told her that you didn't expect many present, so she must have made you a Weasley sweater. Every year she makes us a sweater, and mine's always maroon."

"That's really nice of her. The fudge that came with it was really good too. Sorry I didn't try to get my family to get you something."

"Don't worry about it. What could they get me anyway? They're muggles, right?"

Fred and George join you. They are both sporting blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, and the other with a G. "Hey, look! Harry's get a Weasley sweater too!"

"His is better than ours, though. She obviously makes more of an effort because you're not family," says Fred as he inspects your sweater.

"You haven't got letters on yours though," George observes. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name, but we're not stupid; we know we're called Gred and Forge."

You and the Weasleys spend a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, wet, and gasping for breath, you head to an unused classroom, where you break in your new chess set by losing spectacularly to Ron. You think you might have done a bit better if Percy hadn't tried to help you so much.

After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, truffles, and Christmas cake, you feel too full and sleepy to do much before bed, so you bid farewell to the Weasleys and head back to your common room.

Today was a great Christmas, but something had been nagging at the back of your mind all day. It wasn't until you had climbed into bed were you free to think about it: the nifty cloak and whoever sent it.

You pull the cloak from under your bed. Your father's... this was your father's. You let the material flow over your hands, smoother than silk, light as air. _Use it well_, the note said.

You have to try it on now. You slip out of bed and wrap the cloak around yourself. Looking down at your legs, you see only moonlight and shadows. You would say it feels weird, but you rather enjoy it, so there must be a different word for it.

_Use it well_.

Suddenly, you feel wide awake. You're not supposed to go out at night, but with the cloak, who could ever know? The thought of being able to get away with breaking the rules fills you with nervous excitement as you stand in the dark silence. You can go anywhere, anywhere and Filch would never know.

You creep out of the dormitory before you can return to your senses. Hardly believing what you are doing, you slide out of the common room.

Where should you go? You stop, your heart is racing at the thought. Then it comes to you: The Restricted Section in the library. You'll be able to read as long as you like, as long as it takes you to find out what an alchemist like Flamel might have that needs more protection then a bank can offer. You practically have a duty to The Children, and Hogwarts itself to break the rules so that you can find out what Fluffy is guarding.

The library is pitch-black, and the shadows almost unnerve you, but you have a mission, and you will finish it. You light a lamp to see your way along the rows of books. The lamp looks as if it is floating along in midair, and even though you can feel your arm holding it, the sight gives you the creeps.

The Restricted Section lies waiting at the very back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separates these books from the rest of the library, you hold up your lamp to read the titles.

They don't tell you much.

Their peeling faded gold letters spell words in languages you can't understand. Some have no titles at all. A dark stain taints one book, looking horribly like blood. The hairs on the back of your neck prickle. A faint whispering seeps from the books themselves, as though they know that someone is there who shouldn't be. As if they know that you are there.

A large black and silver volume catches your eye. You pull it out with difficulty, because it is very heavy, and, balancing it on your knee, let it fall open.

A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek splits the silence. The scream comes from the book, so you snap it shut, but the shriek continues. One high, unbroken, earsplitting note. You stumble backwards in panic, knocking over your lamp, which goes out at once, trapping you in the dark. The sound of approaching footsteps meets your ears. Panicking, you run.

You pass Filch in the doorway and nearly knock into him. His pale, wild eyes look straight through you, and you just manage to duck under his arm, to keep running, the book's shriek still ringing in your ears.

You stop suddenly in front of a tall suit of armor. There is a suit of armor like this near the kitchens, but you must be five floors from there. You were so busy getting away, that you aren't sure where you got away to. Perhaps it is the dark that still presses in around you, or the distracting sound of your racing heart pumping adrenaline through your veins, but you don't recognize where you are.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around tonight, and somebody's been in the library; Restricted Section."

The blood drains from your face. Wherever you are, Filch must know a shortcut, because his soft, greasy voice approaches, and to your horror, it is Professor Snape who replies, "The Restricted Section? Well, they can't be far. We'll catch them."

You stand rooted to the spot in terror as Filch and Professor Snape come around the corner. They can't see you, but what if the cloak stops working. Now that you think about it, you realize that you know next to nothing about this cloak. Is there a spell to detect it? Does it always work, or only at certain times? If they come much closer, it won't matter, they'll knock right into you; you're pretty sure the cloak doesn't stop you from being solid.

You back away as quietly as you can. A door stands ajar to you left. It holds your only hope. You hold your breath and squeeze through it, struggling not to touch it. To your relief, you manage to get inside the room without them noticing anything. Remembering the last time you found yourself in this situation, you look over your shoulder, and see that there is no giant beast in this room, only an old dusty mirror.

It doesn't look as if it belongs here, but rather as if someone has put it here to keep it out of the way. It is a magnificent mirror though, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. An inscription carved around the top: _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. _

Your panic fades as you marvel at the mirror, which was clearly constructed in ancient times to bear an inscription in a language that doesn't even look familiar. Oyt is the only word that repeats itself, so you figure that might mean the, but the rest is a mystery that you doubt you can solve. You will have to show this to Hermione when she gets back. She is the Ravenclaw, so she might be able to figure it out. You move closer to the mirror, wanting to use the magnificent artifact to look at yourself, but see no reflection.

You have to clap your hand to your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. You whirl around, the fear of a moment ago back in full force. You saw not only yourself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind you.

The room is still empty. Breathing very fast, you turn back to the mirror.

There you are, reflected in it, white and terrified, and there, right behind you, are at least fifteen others. You look over your shoulders, but still, no one is there. Or are they all invisible? Perhaps this mirror reflects invisible people.

You look back into the mirror and notice for the first time that your family is there. Dudley waves at you, and Uncle Vernon nods approvingly at your father's cloak. Warmth fills you at the thought that he approves of you wearing the cloak. Directly behind you stand a man and a woman who you don't recognize, but you notice that the lady has green eyes just like yours, and the man has your awful hair. It comes to you now that these people could not possibly be here. Your family would never set foot inside Hogwarts, and the two directly behind you must be your parents, who you know are dead.

Now you know what the mirror does: It must show a person their family. Your mother is a very pretty woman. Dark red hair flows from her head, and her eyes shine at you, looking remarkably like yours. You edge a bit closer to the mirror. You notice that her bright green eyes are crying, she smiles, but cries at the same time. The tall, thin, black haired man standing next to her, your father, puts his arm around her. He wears glasses, and his hair stands at all angles, just like yours.

You are so close to the mirror now that your nose almost touches that of your reflection.

"Mum?" you whisper, "Dad?"

They just look at you, smiling. Slowly, you look into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and see other eyes like yours, other noses like yours, even a little man who looks as though he has your knobby knees. A man behind your mum has Aunt Petunia's long neck, and some people behind him have thinner versions of Dudley's face. You are looking at your whole family for the first time in your life.

The Potters smile and wave at you, and you stare hungrily back at them, your hands pressed flat against the glass, hoping that you might fall right through it and reach them. You feel a terrible ache deep inside yourself, half-wild joy, half-terrible sadness.

You aren't sure how long you stand there. The reflection does not fade, and you look and look until a distant noise brings you back to your senses. You can't stay here. You have to find your way back to bed. You tear your eyes away from your mother's face, whisper, "I'll come back," and hurry from the room.

"You could have told me that you were going to sneak out," Ron says crossly.

"I didn't know I was going out until I was actually on my way. We can find it again now; I want to show you the mirror."

"I'd like to see your mum and dad," Ron agrees eagerly.

"I want to see your family too, all the Weasleys, you'll be able to show me your other brothers and everyone."

"You can see them any old time, just come 'round my house this summer. Anyway, maybe it only shows dead people."

"No, it showed me my living family too."

You are rather nervous that you might not be able to find the room again. You and Ron retrace your route from the library last night. You wander around the maze-like passageways of Hogwarts for nearly an hour.

"I'm freezing, lets forget about it and go back."

"No! I know it's here somewhere."

You pass the ghost of a tall witch gliding in the opposite direction, but see no one else. As Ron moans that his feet are dead with cold, you spot the suit of armor.

"It's here, just here. Yes!"

You push open the door, and run to the mirror.

There they are. Your parents beam at the sight of you.

"See?" you ask.

"I can't see anything."

"Look! Look at them all... there are loads of them."

"I can only see you."

"Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am."

You step aside, but with Ron standing in front of the mirror, you can't see your family anymore, just Ron in an orange sweater.

Ron, though, stares transfixed at his image.

"Look at me."

"Can you see your family standing all around you?"

"No, I'm alone, but I'm different; I look older, and I'm, head boy!"

"What?"

"I am; I'm wearing the badge like Bill used to, and I'm holding the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup; I'm Quidditch captain too!" Ron tears his eyes away from this splendid sight to look excitedly at you. "Do you think this mirror shows the future?"

"How can it? Most of my family is dead. Let me have another look."

"You had it to yourself all last night, give me a bit more time."

"You're only holding the Quidditch cup, what's so interesting about that? I want to see my parents."

"Don't push me."

A sudden noise outside in the corridors puts an end to your discussion. You hadn't realized how loud you were talking.

Mrs. Norris comes around the door. You can tell that Ron is thinking the same thing as you. "Do you think we're allowed to be here?"

"I don't see why not, but we better leave before Filch shows up." Ron pulls you from the room, but you return by yourself that night, under your father's cloak.

The snow still hasn't melted the next morning.

"Want to play chess, Harry?"

"No."

"Why don't we go down and visit Hagrid?"

"No, you go."

"I know what you're thinking about, Harry, that mirror. Don't go back to it."

"Why not?"

"I donno, I've just got a bad feeling about it, and anyway, you've had too many close shaves already. Filch and Snape and Mrs. Norris are wandering around."

"You sound like the girls."

"I sound like you when you're thinking straight. I'm serious, Harry, don't go."

You only have one thought in your head, and Ron isn't going to stop you.

Once you lose Ron, you don your father's cloak and find the mirror once more. Once you are in front of it, you see your mother and father smiling at you again, and one of your grandfathers nodding happily. You sink down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There is nothing to stop you from leaving before curfew, and you think that you might just stay past that. You might just stay all night.

Except...

"So, back again, Harry?"

Your insides turn to ice. You look behind you. Sitting on one of the desks by the wall is none other than Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and Partner of Nicolas Flamel, among many other things. You must have walked straight passed him in your desperation to get to the mirror.

"I, I didn't see you, sir."

"Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you." You are relieved to see that he is smiling. Professor Dumbledore slips off the desk to sit on the floor with you. "So, you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."

"I didn't know it was called that, sir."

"But I expect you've realized by now what it does?"

"It, well, it shows me my family."

"And it showed your friend Ron himself as head boy."

"How did you know?"

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible. Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?"

You shake your head.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?"

You think about it, and the answer quickly becomes clear. "It shows us what we would need in order to become the happiest person in the world?"

"Yes, and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been out-shadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

"The mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"

You stand up. "Sir, Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you a question?"

"Obviously, you've just done so," Dumbledore smiles. "You may ask me one more thing, however."

"What do you see when you look into the mirror?"

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."

You barely hold in a snort.

"One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone, and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

As you head back to bed, you can't help wondering if Professor Dumbledore is quite normal. Who wants socks for Christmas? Then again, he is supposed to be the greatest wizard of the age; how could someone that good not be normal?

AN: I've always wondered how that applies to those of us who dwell in the wonderful world of fan fiction, to the detriment of living our real lives. Or any art for that matter, but I doubt that Rowling was trying to make a point against artists, as she is one herself.


	12. What Daphne Learned

Disclaimer: As soon as I had completed the alter to J. K. Rowling, I made a sacrifice of this chapter to her, for she is the rightful owner of all that I have written here, and indeed all that could ever be in your universe.

AN: Yeah, this chapter is late again. My computer is broken, and I was too lazy to get to a public computer until now. Fortunately I have been writing in Google Docs, so I have not lost anything. I will have regular access to a public computer in June; until then, updates may be irregular. Also, there are only three chapters left in book one after this chapter, only one of which is actually written. After I finish posting book one, I plan to take a two or three week break to work on the PDF and to get a start on book two.

Chapter Twelve

What Daphne Learned

Or How the Identity of Nicolas Flamel was Discovered

Daphne Greengrass rolled over in bed yet again. She had gone to bed over three hours ago, but she still couldn't fall asleep. Deciding that she needed a nice strong cup of tea to help her sleep, she begrudgingly rolled out of bed.

Sneaking past her sister's room, as to not disturb her sleep, she crept down the stairs to the kitchen. When she arrived, she was surprised to see that her parents were still awake, and sitting together talking in hushed voices.

As she walked over to the table, her father looked up at her. "What are you doing up, sweetheart?"

"Couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd make a cup of tea."

Her father nodded at her. "We couldn't sleep either, that's why we came down for a glass of brandy."

"Daddy, how do you feel about muggleborns?"

"Well, I don't have anything against them; in fact, when I was at Hogwarts I had a friend who was a muggleborn. He was a smart man."

This surprised Daphne. "Really? I never knew that you had a muggleborn friend. Have I met him?"

"No, I haven't talked to him since we finished school. I think he got a job at the ministry or something. That's how you know he was smart; he was able to do well for himself despite being a muggleborn. I don't have anything against them, but they just don't know our ways, and most of them can't do very well for themselves. It's not their fault, really, they were just born below us."

"Oh, okay. So, it's okay if I have a muggleborn friend then?"

Daphne's father nodded at her as he handed her a cup of tea. "I don't see why not. I hope that hasn't been keeping you up; they really aren't worth losing sleep over." He yawned. "Well, the brandy seems to have fit the ticket. I'm headed to bed, are you coming dear?"

Mrs. Greengrass spoke for the first time. "That's alright dear, I'll be up in a little bit."

Mr. Greengrass left the kitchen, and Daphne's mum turned to her. "Your father just doesn't understand. It's probably because he was in Ravenclaw. Tell me about this muggleborn friend of yours."

"Well, she's probably the smartest girl in our year, and she's the Ravenclaw in our group of friends. Harry Potter thought that it would be a good idea to have a friend in every house."

Daphne's mum nodded at her. "That sounds like it could be a good idea, the other houses all have virtues that could help you reach your ambitions, and a smart muggleborn could be helpful to have around. Just remember not to get too friendly with her. Friends are to be used, not sacrificed for. Especially muggleborn friends."

"That's why you married dad, because you knew that he would be a useful husband," Daphne intoned the well-known fact.

"Yes. I wanted someone smart from an old house. He was open-minded enough not to mind me being the first pureblood in my house, and I didn't care that the Greengrass fortune isn't what it once was, because I knew that he would take me, and give my children an old name.

"Be careful with your friend. I met my great-grandparents, so I know that being muggleborn doesn't really matter outside of social context. Don't let her forget that you are better than her, or she might make you and everyone else forget it too."

BOOM.

Mrs. Greengrass might have gone on, but she was interrupted by a loud explosion from the basement.

"Oh dear, it seems that your brother's latest experiment isn't going as well as he had hoped. Do try not to stay up too late." With that, Daphne's mum left her alone in the kitchen with her cup of tea.

Curious as to what her brother was up to now, Daphne took her tea and headed downstairs.

When she got to his lab, her brother was trying to clear brown sludge off of an open book.

"Are you okay?"

Derick Greengrass looked up from his book and smirked arrogantly at his little sister. "As if something so mundane could harm me. It does seem that the gold cauldron I just bought has not fared as well. I suspect that not enough gold could find its way into the potion."

"Really? Maybe you just need some sleep, you look exhausted."

Derick laughed. "Sleep is for the weak of heart, sis. That is why I shall eliminate the need for it."

Daphne smirked. "Looks more like you are establishing the need for better cleaning charms."

"Perhaps, but I shall discover a potion to rid the world of the need for sleep yet. I think it might work if I just throw some Galleons at it."

"Do you really think that carelessly tossing around Galleons will solve your problem?"

Derick shrugged. "I don't see why not. It's just money, and my research has shown many wizards have used that strategy with great success. Just study up on the people who managed to get themselves on Chocolate Frog cards, and you'll see the pattern emerge."

The jestful boast gave Daphne an idea. If there was one person she could feel safe asking, it was surely her brother. "Hey, do you know who Nicolas Flamel is? I came across his name somewhere and it rang a bell, but I just can't figure out where I know him from."

"Of course. You probably know him from Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card. Wait a minute, I know I have an extra of him somewhere." Derick disappeared behind an ominous pile, and reemerged triumphantly with a card held high.

Daphne read over the card. So Flamel was Dumbledore's old alchemy partner? Surely he had done something else if Dumbledore was going through so much trouble to hide something of his. "Oh, is that it? I thought he'd done something of his own, for some reason."

Derick looked at her incredulously. "He did. Nicolas Flamel was the greatest alchemist who ever lived. He's the only one to ever create the Philosopher's Stone!"

"The what?"

"The Philosopher's Stone. It's only the highest aim of the noble art of alchemy. It can turn any base metal into gold, and it can make people live forever. That's why he's still alive; he's lived six hundred years or something. After I eliminate my need of sleep, I shall be the second person ever to create the stone."

"Can you do that by throwing away our dwindling supply of gold?"

Derick smiled at her playfully. "Shut up."

When she got back to her bedroom that night, Daphne dug out her old Chocolate Frog cards, and found a few copies of Dumbledore's card. She knew what she would be sending the other Children for Christmas.

AN: Wow, it has been years since I have written anything in third person past tense. Amazing how hard it was not to call Daphne 'you'.


	13. Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

Disclaimer: A few days after my first chapter was sacrificed to the creative Rowling on her new alter, I set to work creating a giant bronze statue to stand in front of the alter. It was only fitting that a glorious image should stand in front of the alter to She-Who-Owns-All.

AN: Well, I once more have regular access to a public computer, and with luck my mac should be fixed by the end of the week, so I will no longer have to use my phone as my computer. This means that I should be back to updating every Monday. The next two chapters have yet to be written, but they will be the last two of book one. Enjoy.

Chapter Thirteen

Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

Because Dumbledore convinced you not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, you leave your cloak folded at the bottom of your trunk for the rest of the holidays. You wish you could forget what you saw in the mirror as easily, but you can't. You've started having nightmares. Over and over again, you dream about your parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackles with laughter and your living family looks on with disapproval and calls you a freak.

Ron is completely unsympathetic when you tell him about the dreams. "You see, Dumbledore was right. That mirror could drive you mad." You suspect that he means to say that he was right, but you don't begrudge him that, because he was.

The girls are even worse when you tell them about the mirror. They both found out that Nicolas Flamel was known for creating something called The Philosopher's Stone over their holidays, and are horrified that you were out after curfew looking into a hidden magic mirror, instead of looking into Flamel.

A bright spot to the new term is that Cedric, ever determined to lead the Quidditch team to victory, is training you and the team extra hard for their match against Gryffindor. "Just because their seeker is rubbish doesn't mean we can slack off. Their chasers are dangerous, and their keeper is impressive. We have to stay ahead of them in score, and I have to catch the snitch as quickly as possible." You think Cedric has the right idea. If you beat Gryffindor, you can overtake Slytherin in the House Championship for the first time in over a decade. Quite apart from wanting to win, you find that you have fewer nightmares when you are tired out after training.

You and Ron have developed something of a friendly rivalry over the upcoming Quidditch game. He seems to think that Gryffindor will win because his brothers are on the team, but you know that Cedric has been training the team hard, and that he will beat the Gryffindor seeker, to the snitch.

When the day of the game finally arrives, you and Ron make a point of sitting on opposite sides of the Quidditch stands. In an effort not to take sides, Hermione sits with Ron, and Daphne with you. Hufflepuff is certain to win. After all, you'd bet a Philosopher's stone that Cedric can beat McLaggen.

As the players kick off, you look across the pitch at Ron, and notice him having a confrontation with Malfoy. You smile to yourself, hopefully he'll knock the arrogant boy down a few pegs. You doubt it, but a good laugh is bound to result when he tells you about what is happening.

A few minutes into the match, you spot the snitch, but Cedric is on the other end of the pitch, and doesn't see it. When you look back over at Ron, you notice that he is now fighting Malfoy. You turn to Daphne, who sits on the Slytherin side of the Slytherin-Hufflepuff line. "Ron's bringing Malfoy down a few pegs, but I don't know how long Nevile can hold off Crabbe and Goyle."

Daphne looks over to the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw divide. "I'm surprised that he's doing so well. They really shouldn't be fighting like that; there are better ways to bring Malfoy down. I think I'll bring up my disappointment in Malfoy's lack of good breeding to a few older Slytherins."

Daphne heads further into the Slytherin crowd, and you turn your attention back to the game. You find the snitch again, but Cedric isn't even close to it, and continues to fly in the wrong direction.

Two hours later, you have spotted the snitch three more times, and taken to seeing how long you can follow it. You spot it by the Gryffindor goal post, and this time you can tell that Cedric sees it too.

McLaggen, the Gryffindore seeker, is closer, but he is too busy yelling at one of the Weasley twins about their beating to notice it. Cedric zooms past him and dives for the snitch. It must sense him coming, because it moves to hide behind the goal post, but Cedric easily snatches it as he flies past, winning the game 280-160.

After rushing down to the field to congratulate the team with the rest of your house, you head over to the broom shed, because after watching the game, you fancy some flying yourself. You select one of the school brooms and jump to the air. Even after all the time you have spent practicing with the team, you can't think of anything you love more than the first few moments in the air.

When the sun starts to set, you decide that it is time to head back to the castle for dinner. As you reach the shed, you lean back against the wooden door and look up at Hogwarts, with its windows glowing red in the setting sun.

A hooded figure comes swiftly down the front steps of the castle. Clearly not wanting to be seen, it walks as fast as possible towards the forbidden forest. The elation of flying flees your mind as you watch. You know that figure's prowling walk. Professor Snape, sneaking into the forest while everyone else is at dinner. What is going on?

You jump back on your borrowed school broom and take off before you can think better of the reckless idea. This might be your chance to prove to Hermione and Daphne that Snape is after the Philosopher's Stone. Gliding silently over the castle, you see Professor Snape enter the forest at a run. You follow, your blood pounding in your ears.

The trees are so thick that you can't see where Professor Snape has gone, but you are glad for this, because it means that he can't see you either. You fly in circles, lower and lower, brushing the tops of trees until you hear voices. You inch towards them until you hover perfectly still inside a towering beech tree.

You pivot slightly to try and see through the leaves. With luck, you will be able to hear what is being said over the pounding of adrenaline in your ears.

Below in a shadowy clearing, stands Professor Snape, and he isn't alone. Professor Quirrell stands there too. You can't make out his face, but he stutters worse than ever. You take a deep calming breath and strain to hear what they are saying.

"... d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus..."

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private. Students aren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all."

Quirrell mumbles something, but you don't catch it.

"Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?"

"B-b-but Severus, I …"

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell." Professor Snape takes a threatening step towards him.

"I-I don't know what you …"

"You know perfectly well what I mean."

An owl's hoot nearly causes you to jump and blow your cover. You steady yourself in time to hear Professor Snape say, "... your little bit of hocus-pocus. I'm waiting."

"B-but I d-d-don't …"

"Very well. We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had time to think things over and decide where your loyalties lie." He throws his cloak over his head and strides out of the clearing. It is almost dark now, but you can see Quirrell, standing quite still as though he is petrified.

The following Friday, you tell the other children what you learned from your espionage before heading over to Hagrid's. "So we're right, it is the Philosopher's Stone, and Professor Snape's trying to force Professor Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy, and he said something about Professor Quirrell's 'hocus-pocus'. I reckon there are other things guarding the Philosopher's Stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Professor Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Professor Snape needs to break through."

Hermione nods thoughtfully, "I think you might be right. It certainly seems that way now, at least. Does that mean that the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?"

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," Ron predicts.

Daphne shakes her head. "I think that you three just don't like Snape."

"What? You heard what Harry said. He was threatening Quirrell to try and get the Stone."

"Maybe, or maybe Quirrell is trying to get the Stone, and Professor Snape was trying to stop him. That makes more sense to me. Don't forget that Professor Dumbledore trusted Professor Snape as his spy in the war."

Now Hermione looks torn. "Maybe, but it still looks pretty bad for him. Why don't we keep both possibilities open?"

You don't like the idea, but you don't feel like fighting. "Sounds good to me, just don't get too mad when it turns out to be Professor Snape."

Daphne sighs in frustration.

Quirrell must be braver than you had thought, because the Philosopher's Stone didn't disappear the following Tuesday. You think that he looks paler and thinner, but he doesn't seem to have cracked yet.

Every time you pass the third floor corridor, you have taken to pressing your ear to the door to check that Fluffy is still growling inside. Professor Snape is still sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which you figure to mean that the Philosopher's Stone is still safe. Whenever you pass Professor Quirrell in the halls, you give him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron has taken to telling people off for laughing at his stutter, an idea that Hermione heartily approves of.

Hermione, however, has more on her mind than encouraging respect towards the professors, she has started drawing up study schedules and color-coding all her notes. You and Daphne agree that she is the best friend ever, because she also made up a study schedule for each of you, and even color coded it. Ron is less impressed.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Ten weeks," Hermione snaps, something she has been developing a bad habit of doing as exams approach. "That's not ages. That's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

"But we're not six hundred years old. Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important. I should have started studying a month ago. I don't know what got into me."

You sigh. "Ron, just let it be. We should be studying anyway. That is why we're here after all. Hermione, I'm sure you'll do fine starting now."

They both glare at you. Why can't you just make everyone happy?

Unfortunately for Ron, the professors seem to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They pile on so much homework that the Easter holidays aren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones were. There isn't much time to relax, but there is a certain satisfaction that comes from practicing wand movements while Hermione recites the twelve uses of dragon's blood and Daphne reads her Transfiguration text book, even if Ron spends most of the time moaning and yawning. At least he makes an effort to get through some of his extra work. You suspect that if he actually just sat down and did it, he would have been done earlier in the week, and could have been playing chess with his brothers or something. Perhaps that is why he isn't a Hufflepuff.

"I'll never remember this," Ron bursts out, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out the library window. It is the first really nice day in months outside, but you are working inside, mindful of what Professor Snape told you last time you took a library book out on the grounds.

You are trying to memorize the exact wand movements in the complex Filipian Pattern that is used in many standard household charms, so you don't even look up until you hear Ron say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"

Hagrid shuffles into view, hiding something behind his back. He looks very out of place in his moleskin overcoat.

"Jus' lookin'," he says in a shifty voice that gets your attention at once. "An' what're yeh lot up ter?" He looks suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?"

"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," Ron blurts out. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's the Philosopher's St …"

"Shhhh!" Hagrid looks around quickly to see if anyone is listening. Of course, no one is, because you are in your safe secluded corner to keep the secret of The Children safe. "Don't go shouting about it, what's the matter with yeh?"

You look around, mimicking Hagird and whisper, "There are a few things we wanted to ask you about that, actually. What's guarding _you-know-what _ apart from the four legged fluff ball …"

"SHHHH! Listen, come an' see me later. I'm not promining I'll tell yeh anything, mind, but don' go rabbiting about it in here. Students aren't s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh..."

Daphne nods in understanding. "We'll see you later then."

Hagrid shuffles off.

"I thought I was appropriately discrete."

Daphne rolls her eyes. "That's because you are a Hufflepuff. Best to be careful about these sorts of things."

"I was being careful. Who would guess what I meant by _you-know-what_?"

"Perhaps someone who had just heard Ron mention it."

Hermione interrupts you before you can argue any further. "What was he hiding behind his back?"

"Do you think it had anything to do with the small rock?"

"Huh? I, right, the Stone. I'll go see what section he was in." You make a mental note never to trust Ron with any really important secrets as he heads off. He comes back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slams them down on the table.

"Dragons!" he whispers. "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: _Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper's Guide._"

You stare at the books in disbelief. "Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I met him."

"No, he wouldn't. It's illegal! Dragon breeding was outlawed the Warlocks' Convention of 1709. Hagrid wouldn't break the law." Daphne is clearly outraged, but she's not the only one.

"Yeah. It's too hard to stop muggles from noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back gardens. Anyway, you can't tame a dragon, it's dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie's got off wild ones in Romania."

You shake your head to try and clear it. "But, but there aren't wild dragons here in Britain?"

"Of course there are. Common Welsh Green and Herbridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them up, I can tell you. They have to keep putting spells on muggles who've seen them to make them forget."

"So what on earth is Hagrid up to?" Hermione wonders.

When you knock on the door of the gamekeeper's hut an hour later, you are surprised to see that all the curtains are closed. Hagrid calls, "Who is it?" before letting you in, and then shuts the door quickly behind you.

It is stiflingly hot inside. Even though it is such a warm day, a fire blazes in the grate. Hagrid makes you tea and offers you stoat sandwiches, which you refuse.

"So, yeh wanted ter ask me something?"

"Yes." You figure there is no point beating around the bush. "We were wondering if you could tell us what's guarding the Philosopher's Stone apart from Fluffy."

Hagrid frowns at you. "O' course I can't. Number one, I don't know meself. Number two, yeh know too much already, so I wouldn't tell yeh even if I could. That Stone's here fer a good reason. It was almost stolen outta Gringgotts. I s'ppose yeh've worked that out and all? Beats me how yeh even know abou' Fluffy."

"Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know. You know everything that goes on round here," says Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid's beard twitches, and you can tell that he is smiling. "We only wondered who had done the guarding, really. We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart form you."

Daphne nods.

Hagrid's chest swells at these last words. "Well, I don't s'pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that. Let's see, he borrowed Fluffy from me, then some o' the teachers did enchantments. Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirrell, and Dumbledore himself did something, o' course. Hang on, I've forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape."

"Professor Snape?"

"Yeah, yer not still on about that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he's not about ter steal it."

"I told you, Dumbledore trusts Professor Snape. He was the spy during the war, he's not about to turn on Dumbeldore now." Daphne gloats.

You shake your head. "You think Professor Quirrell is after it, and he's protecting it too. I bet Professor Snape only protected it so that nobody else could get to it first." You can see that Ron and Hermione are thinking the same thing. If Professor Snape was in on protecting the Stone, it must not have been very hard for him to figure out how the other professors are guarding it. He probably knows everything, except, it seems, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy.

"You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, right Hagrid? You wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?"

"Not a soul knows except me and Dumbledore," says Hagrid proudly.

You nod in satisfaction. "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling."

"Can't, Harry, sorry," says Hagrid. You notice him glance at the fire. You look at it , too.

"Hagrid, what is that?"

You already know what it is. In the very center of the fire, underneath the kettle, is a huge, black egg.

"Ah." Hagrid fidgets nervously with his beard. "That's er."

"Where did you get it, Hagrid?" Ron crouches over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must have cost you a fortune."

"Won it last night. I was down in the vilage having a few drinks, and I got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid o' it, ter be honest."

"But what are you going to do with it when it hatches?" asks Hermione.

Daphne buts in, "Forget what you'll do with it, what if you get caught with it. Those are illegal, and for good reason."

"Well, I've bin doing some reading." Hagrid pulls a large book from under his pilow. "Got this outta the library. _Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit. _ It's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on 'em, see, and when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. And see here, how ter recognize different eggs; what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them.

He looks very pleased with himself, but you aren't.

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," says Hermione.

Daphne has a more legal problem. "And the ministry is sure to catch on quickly. They will send you to prison for this. You have to get rid of it quickly. Before it hatches. Or just take it out of the fire and throw away the egg. I'm all about pleasure and profit, but you just can't do this."

Hagrid clearly isn't listening to either of them. He hums merrily as he strokes the fire.

On your way back from Hagrid's hut, you discuss your new worry: what will happen to Hagrid when someone finds out that he is hiding an illegal dragon in his wooden hut.

"We can't let him keep it. I say we don't visit him anymore until he gets rid of it. We could get in trouble too, not just him. The ministry is very serious about this sort of thing."

You shake your head at Daphne. "Hagrid's our friend. We have to find some way to help him out." She gives you a glare that clearly means _she_ will not be breaking the rules for anyone. "Help him to get back to following the law again, of course."

Ron sighs. "I wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life."

Daphne smirks at him, in a way that only a Slytherin really can. "If you wanted a peaceful life, you never would have found Fluffy."

Ron starts to retort, but Hermione cuts him off. "What's done is done, but we do have to figure out a way to help Hagrid. He won't agree to let it die," here she shoots Daphne a glare, "so we have to find someone who can legally raise a dragon."

Daphne lets out a chuckle. "No one can legally raise a dragon in Britain. That's the point."

You continue to worry about Hagrid as the days turn into weeks. Daphne has refused to visit Hagrid with the dragan there, so the three of you are left to help him hide the egg while you try to figure out a solution.

Then, one breakfst time, Hedwig brings you a note from Hagrid. He has written only two words: _It's Hatching_.

Ron wants to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut, but that's the only class you have with him, and you don't let him.

"Harry, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?"

"If we skip class, we'll raise attention, and the last thing Hagrid needs is someone figuring out what he's doing."

You stop suddenly. Malfoy is only a few feet away, and he has stopped dead to listen. How much has he heard? You don't like the look on his face at all.

You and Ron argue all the way to Herbology and in the end, you agree to run down to Hagrid's with him during lunch.

When the bell sounds from the castle, ending your lesson, the two of you drop your towels at once and hurry through the grounds. Normally you would put your towel away, but you don't think Ron would wait, so you pray it won't get Hagrid caught. Hagrid greets you, looking flushed and excited.

"It's nearly out." He ushers you inside.

The egg lies on the table. Deep cracks cover its once glossy surface. Something moves inside; a funny clicking noise emanates from it.

You all draw up your chairs to the table and watch with a bated breath. All at once there is a scraping noise, and the egg splits open. The baby dragon flops onto the table. It isn't exactly pretty; you think it looks like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings are huge compared to its skinny jet black body. A long snout with wide nostrils shoots from the front of its body. The stubs of horns are just starting to emerge from its head, above bulging orange eyes.

It sneezes. A couple of sparks fly from its snout.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Hagrid murmurs. He reaches out a hand to stroke the dragon's head. It snaps at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

"Bless him, he knows his mummy!"

You remember Hermione's point about Hagrid living in a wooden house. Looking around, it seems particularly flammable. "Hagrid," you wonder aloud, "how quickly do dragons start breathing fire?"

Hagrid is about to answer when the color suddenly drains from his face. He leaps to his feet and runs to the window.

"What's the matter?"

"Someone was looking through the gap in the curtains. It's a kid; he's running back up ter the school."

You bolt to the door in a panic, and look out. Even at a distance, there is no mistaking him; Malfoy has seen the dragon. You can't help but think that maybe Daphne was right to keep her distance from Hagrid while he has a dragon.

Something about the smile lurking on Malfoy's face during the next week makes you, Ron and Hermione very nervious. You spend most of your free time at Hagrid's hut trying to reason with him. Daphne spends the time studying for her finals, frustratingly unconcerned.

"I told you so. Someone was going to find out eventually. Best thing to do is just keep your distance. There's no point in going down with him; that's just stupid," she tells you as you practice controlling the brightness of your lumos charms during your shared charms class. The worst part is, you think she might be right, but you know that it would be wrong to abandon a friend in a time of need. That's not what normal Hufflepuffs are supposed to do, after all.

Hagrid has decided to name the dragon Norbert, and it has grown three times in length in just the week since it hatched. Hagrid hasn't been doing his gamekeeping duties, because Norbert is keeping him so busy.

On Sunday, as the three of you head back from Hagrid's hut, Ron remarks for what must be the hundredth time, "He's lost his marbles, I tell you. There is nothing cute about that dragon. If only he had seen the scars that Charlie has, he would know better than to try and raise a dragon. And Charlie's a professional too!"

You turn to Ron in excitement. You can't believe you never thought of it before. "Charlie!"

"You're losing it too. I'm Ron, remember?"

"No, Charlie, your brother, Charlie. He's in Romania studying dragons, right? We could send Norbert to him. Charlie can take care of him to keep Hagrid happy, and get us all out of trouble."

Ron looks at you in surprise, "Brilliant!"

By the end of the week, you have managed to convince Hagrid that this would be the best for Norbert. You think that he might have realized that he has gotten in over his head and actually be relieved, but that might just be wishful thinking on your part.

After Ron writes to Hagrid, time seems to slow to a crawl. Wednesday night, Ron is with Hagrid after curfew, and Thursday he shows up to breakfast with his hand wrapped in a handkerchief and swollen to twice it's normal size. When you get a chance to talk to him, he confides to you that Norbert bit him, but he seems surprisingly cheerful none the less.

"Nevermind about the bite, Hedwig came to me last night."

"What?"

"Your owl, with my brother's answer. He said that he'll have some friends smuggle Norbert away on Saturday, but we've got to get him to the top of a tower at midnight, so that they can take him without getting caught."

You grin at him hopefully. "Sounds like a job for your Gryffindor courage. You can borrow my cloak, it should be big enough to cover you and Norbert."

It is a mark of how badly he wants to get rid of Norbert that he doesn't even object to you suggesting that he get rid of the dragon on his own. That, or he really just has that much Gryffindor courage.

Unfortunately, Ron's hand doesn't improve throughout the day, and by the end, you, Hermione, and Daphne persuade him to go to the hospital wing because the cut has turned a nasty shade of green, and Hermione thinks that it Norbert's fangs must be poisonous.

After dinner, you rush back to the hospital wing to find Ron in a woeful state.

"It's not just my hand, although that feels like it's about to fall off. Malfoy told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow one of my books so he could come and have a good laugh at me. He kept threatening to tell her what really bit me, I shouldn't have hit him at the Quidditch match, that's why he's doing this."

You shake your head. "He hates us as much as we hate him, he'd do it anyway. Just try and remember how good it felt to hit him."

Daphne is outraged. "Harry! Don't encourage him to break the rules! We'll get Malfoy, but we have to do it the right way."

Hermione decides to try a more calming tactic to calm Ron down. "Just remember, it'll all be over at midnight on Saturday." Unfortunately this has the opposite effect of what she intended. Ron sits bolt upright and breaks into a sweat.

"Midnight on Saturday! Oh no, oh no; I've just remembered. Charlie's letter was in that book Malfoy took, he's going to know we're getting rid of Norbert."

You don't get a chance to answer, because Madam Pomfrey comes over just then and ushers you out, saying that Ron needs his sleep.

"It's too late to change the plan now," you tell the other two in the corridor outside the hospital wing. "We haven't got time to send Charlie another owl, and this could be our only chance to get rid of Norbert. We'll have to risk it, and we've got the invisibility cloak. Malfoy doesn't know about that."

Daphne snorts. "You two do what you want, but I think you're just being stupid. If you go, you're sure to get caught. Let me know how it goes when you're done." With that, she walks away and leaves you and Hermione to worry about how to smuggle a dragon into, and then out of a castle, with the authorities alerted to the time, place, and nature of your deed, without getting caught.

You would feel sorry for Hagrid, now that he has to say his tearful goodbye to Norbert, but you are far too worried about the task that looms ahead of you. Dark clouds cover the stars, masking the grounds in almost total darkness. You are a bit late arriving at Hagrid's hut, because you had to wait for Peeves to get out of your way in the entrance hall, where he was playing tennis against the wall.

Hagrid has Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.

"He's got lot's o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey, an I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely," Hagrid chokes out, as he fights to keep back his tears.

From inside the crate a ripping noise tells you that the teddy bear just lost his head.

"Bye-bye Norbert," Hagrid sobs, no longer even trying to hold back, as you and Hermione cover the crate with the invisibility cloak, and step underneath it yourselves. "Mummy will never forget you!"

How you manage to get the crate back across the pitch black grounds, to the gentle glowing castle, you will never know. Midnight ticks ever nearer, as you fight to silently heave the crate up the many stairs of the tallest tower.

"Nearly there," you pant under your breath, as you reach the corridor beneath your last, and longest assent.

Suddenly something moves down the corridor, almost making you drop the crate in fear. Forgetting that you are already invisible, you sink into the shadows, staring transfixed at the dark outlines of two people grappling with each other ten feet away.

A lamp flares.

Professor McGonagall, in a tartan bathrobe and a hair net, has Malfoy by the ear.

"Detention!" she shouts, "and twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night. How dare you?"

"You don't understand Professor. Harry Potter's coming, and he's got a dragon!"

"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on, I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"

Clearly this is what Daphne is always talking about. Having the law come down on Malfoy feels a thousand times better than watching Ron punch him, or even you would imagine punching him yourself would feel. Across the crate, Hermione seems to agree.

The spiral staircase up to the top of the tower seems the easiest thing in the world now that you have had your spirits blustered by victory over Malfoy. Not until you have stepped out into the cold night air do you throw off the cloak, glad to be able to breathe properly again. Hermione does a sort of jig.

"Malfoy's got detention! I could sing!"

"Don't," you advise her, still aware that you have to be careful to avoid his fate.

Chuckling about Malfoy, you wait, Norbert thrashing about in his crate. Other than the constant danger, life doesn't get much better than this. After about ten minutes, four broomsticks come swooping down out of the darkness.

Charlie's friends are a cheery lot. They show you the harnesses that they've rigged up, so that they can suspend Norbert between them. You all work to get Norbert buckled safely into them, and you and Hermione shake hands with the others and thank them very much.

At last, Norbert is going... going... gone!

You slip back down the spiral staircase with your hearts as light as your hands, now that Norbert is off them. No more dragon, Malfoy in detention, what could possibly spoil your happiness?

The answer waits at the foot of the stairs. As you step into the corridor, Filch's face looms suddenly out of the darkness.

"Well, well, well," he whispers, "we are in trouble."

You left the invisibility cloak on top of the tower. Despite your imminent doom, only one thought sticks in your head: with Ron in the hospital, and you in trouble, Daphne is going to be _so_ smug about having stayed out of the whole thing.


	14. Through the Forbidden Corridor

Disclaimer: Having finished a bronze idol of creative Rowling, I offered up this chapter. Like all else in your world, she came owns this piece of the story that follows. May it please her.

AN: I have become impatient to get to the good stuff that follows this chapter: the part where I no longer have to be so careful about being true to cannon, because enough has changed, so I am combining two chapters together, and skipping over important stuff that is exactly the same as cannon. This goes against my general philosophy, but judging by the reviews, many of you will be happy about it.

Through the Forbidden Corridor

Or What Happened When the Writer Lost His Integrity

Things couldn't be worse.

Filch takes you down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where you sit and wait without saying a word. Hermione trembles. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chase each other around in your head, each more feeble than the last. You have clearly been cornered. Really, how could you have been stupid enough to forget the cloak? This is proof beyond doubt that this adventure stuff is best left to Ron and his Gryffindors. You and Hermione just aren't cut out for danger, especially not the worst sort of danger imaginable: rule breaking.

There is no reason imaginable that Professor McGonagall will accept for your being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which is out of bounds except for classes anyway. Add in Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and you are well and truly done for. She's liable to kill you, or worse, expel you.

Did you just think things couldn't be any worse? You were wrong. Professor McGonagall appears, and she is leading Neville.

"Harry!" Neville bursts out the moment he sees you. "I was trying to find you; I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you; he said you had a drag..."

Fortunately Neville stops talking just in time when he sees the panicked look on your face become more so. Unfortunately, Professor McGonagall looks like she was able to put together what Neville was about to say, and you think she is more likely to breath fire than Norbert right now. So much for Gryffindors being better suited for danger and rule breaking. Maybe Neville was just sorted wrong?

"I would never have believed this of any of you. Mr. Filch says that you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o' clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

This must be the first time that Hermione has ever failed to answer a teacher's question. The question seems like a dangerous one to you, and Ron isn't here, so you look to Neville to answer. He just looks confused.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on. It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock and bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it too?

"I'm disgusted. Four students out of bed in one night! I thought you had more sense. All three of you will receive detentions, yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous, and fifty points will be taken from each of your houses. Now get back to bed, all of you."

As you walk back to the Hufflepuff common room, you wonder if Malfoy also lost fifty points for Slytherin. That would make the point part of the punishment matter less. That is one definite advantage of The Children that you had never realized before. You can't really lose house points, because it would all balance out. Still, the detention is bound to be awful, and you feel like you won't be getting off this easy in the future. Entering the common room, you swear to yourself that you are done meddling in things that aren't your business.

The next morning at breakfast, you see that Malfoy did indeed lose fifty points for Slytherin. The rest of the students are speculating on the sudden loss of points from all the houses, but as they are evenly distributed, nobody seems to care much beyond idle curiosity.

With your detention looming over your head, and Daphne gloating about having washed her hands of the whole Norbert affair, you are almost glad that the exams aren't far away. All the studying you have to do keeps your mind from wondering what horrors await you in detention. You and your fellow children keep mostly to yourselves, working in your abandoned classroom until curfew forces you back to your common rooms. Daphne helps you to remember ingredients in complicated potions, Hermione tutors you until you know charms and spells by heart, and you go over the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions with them.

With exams only a week away, something happens to test your new resolve not to interfere with anything that doesn't concern you. Walking back to the headquarters of The Children from the library, you hear someone whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As you inch closer, you hear Quirrell's voice.

"No, no, not again, please..."

It sounds to you like someone is threatening him. You move closer to the door, hiding in the shadows.

"All right, all right." Quirrell lets out a sob.

The next second, Professor Quirrell comes hurrying out of the classroom, straightening his turban. You pull into the shadows behind the door, but it doesn't seem to matter; Professor Quirrell is so distraught that he doesn't even seem to notice you. You wait until Professor Quirrell's footsteps have faded into the distance, and then peer into the classroom. It is empty, but a door stands ajar at the other end. You have crept halfway to it before you remember your vow not to meddle.

All the same, you feel that you would gamble a gentleman's wager that Professor Snape has just left the room, and from what you just heard, Professor Snape will be walking with a new spring in his step. Professor Quirrell seems to have finally given in.

You continue on to your classroom, where Hermione is testing Ron and Daphne on Astronomy, and tell them what you just heard.

"Snape's done it then!" says Ron. "If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell..."

"If Snape's the one after the stone. Maybe Snape scared Quirrell into giving up." Daphne buts in.

"Not likely."

"There's still Fluffy anyway" Hermione adds.

"Unless Snape found a way to get passed Fluffy without asking Hagrid." Ron looks at the piles of books borrowed from the library. "I bet the library has a book somewhere telling you how to get passed a giant three-headed dog. So, what do you think we do now, Harry?"

The light of adventure is kindling again in Ron's eyes, but that's probably just because he doesn't have a detention hanging over his head form last time.

Much like you, Hermione does. "We go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago."

You shake your head. "We're not supposed to know about The Stone. If we go to the Professors, we'll just get into more trouble."

Daphne nods. "Besides, we don't really have anything to go to them with. They obviously know about the Stone, and I bet Dumbledore knows about Snape and Quirrell."

Hermoine looks convinced, but Ron doesn't. "If we just did some more poking around..."

You are not doing any more poking around. "No, we've done enough poking around. You do what you want, but Hermione and I already have detention." You pull a map of Jupiter towards yourself, and start memorizing the names of its moons.

The next morning at breakfast, you get a note. A brief look around the hall tells you that Hermione, Neville, and Malfoy all got similar notes.

Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight.

Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.

Professor M. McGonagall

As you walk back to the castle from Hagrid's hut, you can't help but think that The Philosopher's Stone just became your business. Who gets a ton of gold may be none of your concern, but Voldemort killed your parents. You plan to keep your vow not to meddle in other people's business, but everyone has a right to meddle in there own business. Besides, the normal thing to do is to put a stop to the plans of a terrorist who killed your parents.

By the time that you get back to your bed, you are shaking uncontrollably, but the night's surprises aren't over. When you pull back your sheets, you find your invisibility cloak folded neatly underneath them. There is a note pinned to it:

Just in case

The next afternoon, you take time that had been scheduled for studying to tell the rest of The Children what happened in the forest. Even after a sleepless night you can't sit still, and have to resort to pacing as you talk.

"Professor Snape wants the Stone for Voldemort, and Voldemort's waiting in the forest, and all this time we thought someone just wanted to get rich."

"Stop saying the name!" says Ron in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear him.

Daphne nods. "We don't know that Snape is the one helping the Dark Lord. You shouldn't name him like that."

You ignore both of them. "Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done so. Bane was furious. He was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen. They must know Voldemort's coming back. Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me. I suppose that's written in the stars as well."

"Will you stop saying that name!" Ron hisses.

"So all I've got to wait for now is Professor Snape..."

"Or whoever," Daphne interjects.

"... to steal The Stone, then Voldemort will be able to come and finish me off. I guess Bane will be happy then."

Hermione finally manages to interrupt your mad rant. "Harry! Everyone says Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You-Know-Who won't touch you. Anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that's a very imprecise branch of magic."

The four of you don't mange to get any studying done, because you keep discussing your new revelation until curfew, when you head to bed exhausted and with a rather sore throat.

You're not quite sure how you managed to get through your exams when you half-expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment, yet the days creep by, and there can be no doubt that Fluffy is still alive and well behind the locked door.

It is sweltering hot, especially in the large classrooms where you do your written papers. You are given special, new quills for the exams, which are bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell.

You have practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick calls you one by one into his classroom to see if you can make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watches you turn a mouse into a snuffbox, points are given for how pretty the snuffbox is, but taken away if it has whiskers. Professor Snape makes you nervous by breathing down your necks while you try to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.

You do the best you can, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in your forehead. Ernie thinks you have a bad case of exam nerves, because you can't sleep, but the truth is that you keep being awakened by your old nightmare, except that it is now worse than ever, because there is a hooded figure dripping in blood in it.

Maybe it is because they didn't see what you did in the forest, or because they don't have scars burning on their foreheads, but Ron, Hermoine, and Daphne don't seem as worried about The Stone as you are. The idea of Voldemort certainly seems to scare them, but he doesn't keep visiting them in dreams, and they are so busy with their studying that they don't have much time to fret about what Professor Snape, or anyone else, might be up to.

Your last exam is the written exam for Charms. One hour of answering questions about wand movements, and the pronunciation of Latin words, and you'll be free, free for a whole wonderful week until your exam results come out. When Professor Flitwick tells you to put down your quills and roll up your parchment, you can't help cheering with the rest of the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins in your Charms class."

"That was far easier than I thought it would be," says Hermione when you meet up with her on the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct, or the unrising of Elfric the Eager."

Daphne smirks, as only a true slytherin can. "What's this? A Ravenclaw lamenting having learned something?"

"Well, I'm glad I know about it, but I might have waited until after the exams to study it, and focused more on what I was actually going to be tested on. Then I might have done better."

You chuckle. "I'm sure you did fine. You probably got the best marks in our class."

Hermione likes to go through the exams, once you have all taken them, but Ron figures that it makes him ill, so you wander down to the lake, and flop under a tree. Ron's twin brothers and Lee Jordan are tickling the tentacles of the giant squid, which basks in the warm shallows.

"No more studying," Ron sighs happily, stretching out on the grass. "You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got a week before we find out how badly we've done. There's no need to worry yet." Ron clearly doesn't understand how quickly a week can pass, but that isn't what you're worrying about.

You rub your throbbing forehead. "I wish I knew what this meant!" You burst out angrily. "My scar keeps hurting. It's happened before, but never as often as this."

"Go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione suggests.

"I'm not ill. I think it's a warning; it means danger's coming."

Daphne looks thoughtful. "I've never heard of a scar acting like that, but it kind of makes sense. After all, your scar's not exactly normal, is it?"

You frown. "I guess not, but I really wish it was."

Ron can't get worked up. It's too hot. "Harry, relax; Hermione's right. The Stone's safe as long as Dumbledore's around. Anyway, we've never had any proof Snape found out how to get past Fluffy. He nearly had his leg ripped off once; he's not going to try again in a hurry, and Neville will play Quidditch for England before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down."

You nod, but you can't shake the nagging feeling that there is something you've forgotten to do, something important. When you try to explain this, Hermione says, "That's just exams. I woke up last night and half way through my Transfiguration notes before I remembered I'd already done that one."

You are quite sure that your unsettled feeling doesn't have anything to do with work. You watch an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid is the only one who ever sends you letters. Hagrid would never betray Professor Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get passed Fluffy, never, but..."

You jump to your feet.

"Where are you going?" Ron asks sleepily.

"I've just thought of something. We've got to go see Hagrid, now."

"Why?"

"Don't you think it's a bit odd that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger shows up who just happens to have a dragon egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against the law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"What are you talking about?" asks Ron, but you are too busy sprinting across the grounds to answer.

Hagrid sits in an armchair outside his house; his trousers and sleeves rolled up, and a large bowl in front of him, where he is shelling peas.

"Hullo," he says, smiling. "Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?"

"Yes please," says Ron, but you cut him off.

"No, we're in a hurry. Hagrid, I've got a question for you. You know the night when you won Norbert? What did the stranger you were playing cards with look like?"

"Dunno he wouldn't take his cloak off." He sees the four of you look stunned and raises his eyebrows. "It's not that unusual. Yeh get a lot o' funny folk in the Hog's Head, that's the pub down in the village. Mighta bin a dragon dealer, mightn't he? I never saw his face, he kept his hood up."

You sink down next to the bowl of peas.

"What did you talk to him about? Did you mention Hogwarts at all?"

Hagrid frowns as he tries to remember. "Mighta come up. Yeah, he asked a bit about the sorta creatures I look after, so I told him, and I said what I'd always really wanted was a dragon, and then... I can't remember too well, 'cause he kept buying me drinks. Yeah, he said he had a dragon egg and we could play fer it if I wanted, but he had ter be sure I could handle it; he didn't want it going ter just any old home, so I told him after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy."

"Did he seem interested in Fluffy?" You try to keep your voice calm so that Hagrid won't realize where you are going with your questions.

"Well, yeah. How many three-headed dogs d'yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how ter calm him down; just play him a bit o' music and he'll go straight off ter sleep."

Hagrid suddenly looks horrified.

"I shoudn't o' told yeh that! Forget I said it! Hey, where're yeh going?"

Daphne hangs around just long enough to say, "The stranger in the pub is the one you shouldn't have told. Really."

You don't speak to each other until you come to a halt in the entrance hall, which seems cold and gloomy after the grounds.

"We've got to tell Professor Dumbledore," you tell the others. "Hagrid told that stranger how to get past Fluffy, and it was either Professor Snape of Voldemort under that cloak. It must have been easy, once he'd gotten Hagrid drunk. I just hope Professor Dumbledore believes us. Firenze might back us up if Bane doesn't stop him. Where's Dumbledore's office?"

Daphne looks mutinous, but for once she doesn't but in to defend her head of house. Clearly even she realizes how serious the situation has become.

You all look around, as if hoping to see a sign pointing you in the direction of Professor Dumbledore's office. Unfortunately no such sign seems to be posted in the entrance hall of the castle.

"We'll just have to..." you begin, but a voice cuts you off.

"What are you four doing inside?"

It is Professor McGonagall, carrying a large pile of books.

"We want to see Professor Dumbledore," says Hermione, rather bravely, you think.

"See Professor Dumbledore?" Professor McGonagall repeats, as though this is a rather fishy thing to want to do. "Why?"

You swallow. "It's sort of a secret," you say, but immediately wish you hadn't, because Professor McGonagall's nostril's flare.

"Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago," she says coldly. "He received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once."

"He's gone? Now?"

"Professor Dumbledore is a very great wizard, Potter, he has many demands on his time..."

"But this is important."

"Something you have to say is more important than the Ministry of Magic, Potter?"

"Professor, is there any way to contact him, it really is important."

"I'm afraid not. If you are that worried about your exams, you may speak with your head of house. I'm sure Professor Sprout will be happy to answer any questions you may have, and she, not the headmaster, is the appropriate person to speak with."

Ron, seeing that you aren't getting anywhere, throws cation to the wind. "It's about The Philosopher's Stone, Professor."

Whatever Professor McGonagall expected, it was far less important than that. The books she was carrying fall out of her arms, but she doesn't pick them up. "How do you know...?"

"Professor, I think, no I know, that someone's going to try and steal The Stone. We've got to talk to Professor Dumbledore."

She eye's you with a mixture of shock and suspicion.

"Professor Dumbledore will be back tomorrow. I don't know how you found out about The Stone, but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it. It's too well protected."

Now that Ron has spilled the beans, you aren't willing to give up. "Please Professor, we think that the thief is exceptionally powerful."

"Potter, I know what I'm talking about. Even You-Know-Who at the height of his power would not have been able to steal that stone, if is far too well-protected. Now, I suggest you all go back outside and enjoy the sunshine."

Feeling mutinous, you compliantly head back out to the grounds, but you don't go far from the front doors of the castle.

"It's tonight. Sna- er, someone's going through the trap door tonight. He's found everything he needs, and now he's got Professor Dumbledore out of the way. I bet that he sent the note, and that the Ministry of Magic will get a real surprise when Professor Dumbledore shows up.

"Right. Here's what we've got to do, one of us will have to keep an eye on Professor Snape, just in case, wait outside the staff room and follow him if he leaves it. Hermione, I think that better be you."

"Why me?"

"It's obvious," says Ron. "You can pretend to be waiting for Professor Flitwick, you know." He puts on a high pitched voice. "Oh Professor Flitwick, I'm so worried, I think I got question fourteen b wrong..."

"Oh shut up. Fine, I'll do it."

You nod at her. "And the rest of us had better stay outside the third-floor corridor."

Daphne shakes her head in disappointment. "Really, I'd thought better of you Harry. That's the sort of plan a Gryffindor might come up with."

"Hey," Ron protests, but Daphne ignores him.

"Even if Professor Snape was behind the whole thing, Hermione stands no chance of shadowing him. He didn't become the only person to spy on the Dark Lord and live to tell the tale by letting himself be shadowed, even by professionals. You said yourself that they'll go after The Stone tonight. There's no way anyone will try anything until after curfew, there's just too much risk before everyone goes to bed. If we try to guard the door during the day, we'll just give ourselves away and get in trouble. We can't talk to Dumbledore, but I be that you could send him an owl. Hedwig could get to the ministry before curfew if you send her right away, and if he takes your message seriously, he can get back long before anyone could get through those traps that McGonagall was so confident in, even if they already know what the traps are and how to get passed them."

Here she pauses in her tirade to give you a seething glare. After a deep breath, she continues. "Now I'm thinking like a bloody Gryffindor, but Dumbledore might not take your warning seriously. Do you still have your father's invisibility cloak, or did you lose it with that dragon nonsense?"

You nod at her. "I got it back after we served our detentions."

She sighs. "Okay, once everyone is in bed after curfew, you should sneak out and guard the door when it might actually do some good. Do you think all four of us can fit?" You nod again. The cloak is really much too large. "Merlin's wand! I was hoping to get out of this. I never break rules, and I loath you for making me do this, but the more of us there are under it, the better a chance we have of protecting the stone. Once everyone is in bed, go to each of the common rooms to pick us up, that way no one will have to wander around unprotected. We can hide under the cloak and take whoever tries to get passed Fluffy by surprise while they are distracted with singing."

After a few minutes, even Ron is convinced that Daphne's plan is for the best, and you head back into the castle, and up to the owlery to write a letter to Professor Dumbledore, explaining everything. Admitting to eavesdropping on professors and smuggling illegal dragons to the headmaster seems foolish to you, but you know that he needs to know everything so that he will realize just how serious the threat is.

When you leave the common room, under your invisibility cloak, you decide to head to the Slytherin dungeons first, because it is the closest to your common room. Daphne is waiting for you outside a bare wall.

Once she is under your cloak, you whisper, "What happened to staying right outside the entrance to your common room so that you wouldn't get caught?"

She rolls her eyes. "This is the entrance to my common room. Now hush before we get caught."

You don't see a painting to guard the entrance, but decide to drop it in favor of silence. You decide that you will pick up Hermione last, because Ravenclaw tower is the closest to the third floor corridor, so you lead Daphne towards the area that Ron always comes from. He told you to look for a portrait of a fat lady. You are a bit annoyed at him, because many of the people in the pictures might fit that description.

When you see the painting that must be the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, you realize that he actually gave you a very good description of what to look for. After about twenty minutes, Ron pushes aside the painting and steps out. As you through the cloak over him, he starts to whisper something about Neville, but stops when Daphne shushes him.

You don't meet anyone again until you reach the staircase that goes up to the Ravenclaw tower. There Peeves bobs halfway down, loosening the carpet so that people will trip. "Who's there?" he asks suddenly as you climb up and away from him. He narrows his wicked black eyes. "Know you're there, even if I can't see you. Are you a ghoulie, or a ghostie, or a student beastie?"

Next to you Daphne starts to tremble as Peeves rises up in the air and floats there, squinting at you.

"Should call Filch, I should, if something's a-creeping around unseen."

You have a sudden idea.

"Peeves," you say in a low whisper, causing Daphne to jump. "The Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible."

Peeves almost falls out of the air in shock. He catches himself in time and hovers about a foot off the stairs.

"So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr. Baron, sir," he says greasily. "My mistake, my mistake. I didn't see you. Of course I didn't, you're invisible. Forgive old Peeves his joke, sir."

"I have business here, Peeves. Stay away from this place tonight."

"I will, sir, I most certainly will." Peeves rises up in the air again. "Hope your business goes well, Baron; I'll not bother you." He scoots off.

When he's gone, and you can breath normally again, Daphne turns to you and whispers, "Great thinking." You and Ron both shush her.

Less than a minute later, you meet up with Hermione, who is already waiting outside a strange statue.

When you finally arrive outside the third-floor corridor, you find that the door is already ajar. Daphne lets out a groan of frustration, but Ron just nods.

"Well that settles it, we'll have to go through ourselves."

Daphne looks at him like he's crazy, and you think she might be right. "We can't go into the forbidden corridor. McGonagall said that even the Dark Lord at his height couldn't have made it through here. We'll die for sure."

You reluctantly nod. "Besides, it's, well, forbidden."

Ron is incredulous. "If we don't do anything, You-Know-Who comes back to full power, right? We have to give it our best try."

Hermione surprises everyone by coming to his aid. "If You-Know-Who comes back, we'll die anyway, right? You said so yourself. We have a better chance of surviving if we try to go through, then if we just let him come back."

You sigh heavily. "I guess you're right, we really don't have a choice."

Daphne turns to you with a look of betrayal in her eyes. "I hate you, all three of you. Is there any way I can talk you out of this." You all shake your heads. "Fine. But don't look at me if this gets us killed."

You push the door open.

As the door creaks, low rumbling growls meet your ears. All three of the dog's noses sniff madly in your direction, even though it can't see you.

"What's that at it's feet?" Hermione asks.

"Looks like a harp," says Ron. "Snape must have left it there."

You turn to the ladies. "Hermione's right, if Voldemort comes back, I'll be dead by tomorrow morning anyway, and Ron's going to go, because he's the Gryffindor, but you two should take my cloak and head back, we won't need it anymore."

Hermione shakes her head. "I'm muggleborn, remember? If he comes back, I'm in as much trouble as you are. I'm going with you."

You nod and turn to Daphne. "You need to cloak anyway. Our only chance against the dark lord's servant is if he doesn't see us, and our only strength is in numbers. I'm coming with you."

You acknowledge her by starting to sing the Hogwarts song at the dog. You don't really know a good tune for it, but from the first line of 'Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,' the beast's eyes begin to droop. Slowly, the dog's growls cease. It totters on its paws and falls to its knees, then it slumps to the ground, fast asleep.

"Keep singing," Ron warns you as he slips out of the cloak and creeps towards the trapdoor. As you follow him to the dog's giant heads, you can feel its hot smelly breath.

"I think we'll be able to pull the door open," says Ron, peering over the dog's back. "I think I should go first." Ron grits his teeth and steps carefully over the dog's legs. He bends and pulls the ring of the trapdoor, which swings up and open.

"What can you see?" asks Hermione anxiously.

"Nothing, just black. There's no way of climbing down, we'll just have to drop."

Feeling rather foolish at singing the ridiculous song, you start over and walk towards to hole in the floor. You look down through the hole and see only black. There is no sign of the bottom.

Ron lowers himself through the hole until he's hanging on by his fingertips, then he looks up at you and says, "If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go right back into the corridors, and start screaming until someone comes to help."

You nod to him, never once stopping in what is now your third rendition of the school song.

Ron takes a deep breath to steady his nerves. "Right, see you in a minute, I hope…"

Proving himself to be a true Gryffindor, Ron lets go. "It's okay! It's a soft landing, you can jump.

Hermione takes over the singing at your silent plea, and you jump down after Ron. Cold damp air rushes past you as you fall down, down, down, and…

FLUMP. With a funny, muffled sort of thump, you land on something soft. You sit up and feel around, your eyes not used to the gloom. It feels as though you are sitting on some sort of plant.

Daphne follows you, and then the distant singing stops. There is a loud dark from the dog, but Hermione has already jumped. "We must be miles under the school," she says.

"Lucky this plant thing's here, really," says Ron.

"Lucky!" shrieks Hermione. "Look at the three of you!"

She leaps up and struggles towards a damp wall. She has to struggle, because the moment she landed, the plant started to twist snakelike tendrils around her ankles. You realize suddenly that your legs are already bound tightly in long creepers.

Hermione manages to free herself before the plant gets a firm grip on her, but the rest of you are not as lucky. You struggle against the plant, but the more you stain against it, the tighter and faster it winds around you.

"Stop moving!" Hermione orders you. "I know what this is, it's Devil's Snare."

"Oh, I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help," Ron snarls, leaning back, trying to stop the Devil's Snare from curling around his neck.

Daphne has already stopped moving. "How are you Gryffindors supposed to be so good at adventures when you're such ideates? Of coarse it helps us to know what it's called, now we know to stop moving."

"Shut up, I'm trying to remember how to kill it!" says Hermione.

"Better remember fast, I can't breath without moving."

"Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare, what did Professor Sprout say? It likes the dark and the damp…"

"So light a fire?" you guess.

"Yes, of coarse, but there's no wood!"

That is too much for Ron, who is by far the worst entangled. "HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?"

"Oh, right!" Hermione whips out her wand, waves it, mutters something, and sends a jet of blue flames at the plant. In a matter of seconds, you feel it loosen its grip as it cringes away from the light and warmth. Wiggling and flailing, it unravels itself from your bodies, until you are able to pull free.

"Lucky you pay attention in Herbology, Hermione," you pant as you join her by the wall, wiping sweat off your face.

"Yeah," says Ron, "and lucky Harry doesn't lose his head in a crisis. 'There's not wood'? Honestly."

Daphne scowls at him. "I didn't see the brave Gryffindor keeping his head."

"This way," you point down the stone passageway, which is the only way forward.

All you can hear apart from your footsteps is the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The passage slopes downward, and you are reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant jolt of the heart, you remember the dragon that you saw in the bank. If you meet a dragon, a fully-grown dragon… Norbert was bad enough.

"Stop for a minute," you hear Daphne's voice whisper. "I've been thinking. We should get back under your cloak, I had the presence of mind to bring it with me when I jumped, and I think that it's the only way for us to have a chance. We shouldn't fight whoever it is though."

"What?" Ron can't believe what she is saying. "Isn't that what we're here for, to stop them from getting the stone?"

"Yeah, but we shouldn't fight them unless we have to. We'd probably loose. We should sneak ahead of them instead. They can't be far ahead of us, so we'll sneak ahead of them and beat them to the stone. Nobody will think to look for it in the Slytherin first-year's dorms, and then tomorrow morning we can give it to Dumbledore."

"Hey," cries Ron. "Why the Slytherin dorms, surely it will be safer in Gryffindor tower."

"No, it won't. Gryffindor is the first place anyone would look if they noticed that it was missing, because everyone knows that Gryffindors are stupidly brave enough to try and get through the forbidden corridor to try and stop the dark lord, but nobody would suspect that a Slytherin would try something this reckless."

You nod, but realize afterwards that none of them can see you in the dark. "Okay, lets do that. We should probably bring it to someone right away though."

Both of them quiet at your suggestion, and Daphne hands you the cloak. Once you are all four under it, you continue on.

"Can you hear something?" Ron whispers after a while.

You listen more carefully. A soft rustling and clinking seems to be coming from up ahead.

"Do you think it's a ghost?"

"I don't know... Sounds like wings to me."

"There's light ahead; I can see something moving."

You reach the end of the passageway and see before you a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above you. Small, jewel-right birds fill it, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber a heavy wooden door guards the unknown challenges beyond.

Moving away from the troll, you pull open the next door, hardly daring to look at what comes next, but there is nothing frightening, just a table with seven different shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

"Snape's," you say. "What do we have to do?"

You step over the threshold, and immediately a fire springs up behind you in the doorway. The purple glow radiating from the flames gives testament to the fact that it isn't ordinary fire. At the same instant, black flames shoot up in the doorway leading onward. You are trapped.

"Look!" Hermione seizes a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. You and Daphne look over her sholders to read it, while still managing to keep under the cover of your cloak. The cloak has been much roomier since Ron was lost to the chess board.

_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

_Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_

_One amoung us seven will let you move ahead,_

_another will transport the drinker back instead,_

_Two amoung our number hold only nettle wine,_

_Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._

_Choose unless you wish to stay here forevermore,_

_To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_

_You will always find some on Nettle wine's left side;_

_Second, different are those who stand at either end,_

_But if you would move onward, neither is your friend:_

_Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_

_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

_Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_

_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

Hermione lets out a great sigh, and you, amazingly, see that she is smiling, the very last thing that you feel like doing.

"Brilliant," says Hermione. "This isn't magic, it's logic; a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."

"But so will we, won't we?"

"Of course not. Everything is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three poisons; two are wine; one will get us safely through the black fire, and one will get us back through the purple."

"But how do we know which is which?"

"Harry, give her a minute to think about it, I think she's on to something."

Hermione reads over the paper several times. Then she walks up and down the line of bottles, muttering to herself and pointing at them. At last she claps her hands. "Got it! The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire, towards The Stone."

You look at the bottle. "There's only enough for one of us. That's hardly one swallow."

You look at each-other. "Which will get you back through the purple flames?"

Hermione points to a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

"You two drink that," you tell them. "No, listen, get back and get Ron. Grap brooms from the flying-key room, they'll get out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy. Go straight to the owlery and send a school owl with another letter for Professor Dumbledore. I might be able to hold them off for a while, but I'm not match for a Professor."

"But Harry, what if You-Know-Who's with him?"

"Well, I was lucky once, wasn't I?" You point at your scar. "I might get lucky again."

Hermione's lip trembles, and she suddenly thews her arms around you.

"Hermione!"

"Harry, you're a great wizard, you know."

"I'm not as good as you."

"Me! Books and Cleverness! There are more important things; friendship and bravers and, oh Harry, be careful!"

"As much as I hate to interrupt this truly touching display, I feel that it is my duty to point out that you are both idiots," Daphne says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "None of us will be drinking any of the potions, all of which are probably poison."

Hermione is clearly not happy to have her careful reasoning so easily disregarded. "But the note said that only three of them are poison."

"Yes, and I'm sure that a spy like Professor Snape would never dream of lying in a clue given as part of a trap meant to stop people from getting to the stone."

"Well then, how would you suggest getting past the fire?"

"Obviously, we don't. Whoever is after the stone is going to have to come back this way after they get it, and Professor Dumbledore must have gotten Harry's note by now, so he will come after us when we don't show up at breakfast tomorrow, even if he disregarded the threat. We just wait here, in this narrow corridore, and ambush them from under the cloak if they come back through before Dumbledore gets here."

You look apologetically at Hermione. "That actually makes a lot of sense."

"Hmm"

You re-arrange the cloak, and the three of you stand by the wall to wait. It is only while trying to figure out what spell you should cast first if Professor Snape comes through the fire, that you realize you don't know the first thing about fighting with magic.


End file.
